Coverage and Underwriting Aspects of Burglary Insurance

Like Gaul, burglary insurance is susceptible to division into three parts: the first, coverage for banks, the second, coverage for individuals, and the third, coverage for non-banking commercial enterprises. This paper will be confined to a discussion of the coverage, rate structure, and underwriting considerations involved in providing coverage for non-banking commercial enterprises, hereinafter referred to as commercial burglary. The omission of banks and individuals does not mean that these areas of coverage are unimportant, but it does recognize that, today, the major portion of bank coverage is written as part of an indivisible package which fidelity coverage controls, and that coverage for individuals is moving rapidly toward inland marine and multiple peril packages. Both of these latter subdivisions, bank and individual coverage, played a major role in the past, but this role has lessened substantially in the last 10 to 20 years, and there is no reason to assume that the trend will change.