Claims Mount from Plane, Train Crashes

The General Insurance Corporation of India holds the cover for the Tuppley TU-154 passenger aircraft that crashed in northwestern Iran earlier today, killing all 168 on board, according to The Insurance Insider.

Among the passengers were members of the Iranian Junior Judo team, traveling to a training camp in Armenia ahead of international competitions in Hungary in August, the Iranian Student’s News Agency reports. The Caspian Airlines aircraft crashed 16 minutes after take-off from Iran's Imam Khomeini International airport at 8:03am GMT. As of press time, claims estimates were not released, but U.S. experts predict these estimates to be in the “hundreds of millions [dollars].”

Iranian aviation has one of the worst safety records, reports Bloomberg, usually as a result of poor maintenance. Today’s crash brings the number of people killed in Iranian air disasters to some 1,610, according to the country’s aviation safety records cited by the state-run Mehr news agency. Unable to buy spare parts for its ageing fleet of U.S.-built aircraft, purchased before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran typically is forced to conduct business on the secondary market. The United States has banned most trade with Iran since the revolution. Russia and Iran signed an accord in 2008 for sales of 100 Tupolev Tu-204 and Tu-214 planes over a 10-year period.

In other news, American International Group Inc. and insurers at Lloyd’s of London are among firms that may face a combined total of more than $100 million in claims tied to the Washington Metro crash that killed nine people last month, according to a Bloomberg report.  

The Metro accident, which occurred on June 22, is considered the deadliest in the city¹s history, and involved the collision of computerized trains, said Debbie Hersman, National Transportation Safety Board in a press conference.

The pool of insurers, which also includes Bermuda-based XL Capital Ltd. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will face costs dependant on estimates of medical care, loss of expected lifetime earnings and the degree of negligence adjudged to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Bloomberg says.

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