This program examines how war risk exclusions are drafted and litigated, why specialty war and political risk products exist, and how landmark decisions continue to define the line between covered and excluded losses. Presented from complementary policyholder and insurer perspectives, it equips counsel to assess coverage gaps, evaluate exclusion defenses, and advise clients on recovery strategy.

Standard property and casualty programs exclude war, warlike action, insurrection, and similar perils, and provide no physical-damage trigger for precautionary shutdowns, rerouted cargo, or business interruption from civil unrest — gaps TRIA does not close. The session maps the specialty market (Political Risk, Political Violence, Terrorism, and War Risk policies) and its BI, contingent BI, denial-of-access, and loss-of-attraction extensions, then turns to interpretation principles, controlling case law, the cyber war frontier, and aviation/marine mechanics.

Key Learning Points

• Burden and construction favor the insured. Under all-risk policies the insurer must prove the exclusion’s application by proximate cause; exclusions must be clear and specific and are construed against the drafter.
• The sovereign-actor requirement controls. Pan Am v. Aetna, Holiday Inns v. Aetna, and Universal Cable v. Atlantic hold that “war” and “warlike operations” require hostilities between de facto governments; non-state actor violence falls outside the exclusion.
• Four recurring issues drive outcomes. Definition of “war,” actor status, attribution (acute in cyber), and proximate causation versus broader “arising out of” language.
• Cyber reshaped the doctrine. After NotPetya (~$10B in damages), Merck v. ACE American confined the “hostile or warlike action” exclusion to traditional warfare, prompting the Lloyd’s mandate and LMA model clauses requiring explicit state-backed cyber exclusions.
• Aviation and marine stakes are substantial. Auto-termination, short-notice cancellation, and listed-area premiums govern these lines; Ukraine aircraft claims (>$13B) and Hormuz premium surges illustrate the exposure.
• Characterization decides coverage. Whether an event is terrorism, war, or another excluded peril often determines the result, making policy wording and causation analysis dispositive.
• Recovery is a discipline. Scrutinize definitions and exclusions, report risks and losses timely, test the merits of denials, and pursue recovery persistently.

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