Lexington Insurance Company, an AIG company, is offering for thefirst time a variety of coverages in a single package for politicalcampaigns. The package, called LexElect, is available to U.S.Senate and House of Representatives campaigns, as well asgubernatorial and local campaigns.

LexElect is being offered on a surplus lines basis exclusivelythrough All Risks Ltd., and is underwritten out of the Baton Rouge,La. Office of AI Risk, a licensed insurance broker that providesaccess to the insurance of Lexington and other AIG Companies.

A brochure outlining the LexElect coverages explains that thepackage includes casualty coverages such as general liabilitycoverage for campaign employees and volunteers; fund raising eventsliability insurance for events held throughout the campaign thathave a maximum of 2,000 guests in attendance; hired/non-ownedautomobile liability insurance; employment practices liabilityinsurance; and host liquor liability for campaign events whereliquor is served, but not sold.

It also includes identity theft insurance, which coversliability and defense costs for "claims arising from an accidentalor malicious breach of private information," and also costsassociated with notifying campaign donors of a breach. Henry Adams,a broker with All Risks, said that today so many contributions aremade over the Internet, and the identity theft coverage protectsthe campaign if personal information, such as Social SecuringNumbers or credit card numbers, is breached.

LexElect also provides coverages on the property side, includinglosses of office contents and property in transit, and crimecoverage to protect against employee dishonesty, forgery, andcomputer fraud.

Mr. Adams said that the idea for LexElect arose out ofcampaigns' needs to seek insurance for their special events. Hesaid, "Where this came from was, in the past, these campaigns wouldbe having special events at a hotel or wherever, and the venuewould say, 'Where is your certificate of insurance?', and [thecampaign] would say, 'My what?'

"And so they would have to go out and get special eventscoverage, which would just cover them for that event. And what[LexElect] does is it covers them for all their events, and takesthem through the election and beyond."

Mr. Adams said that the coverage is new, and has only beenoffered for about 90 days. He noted that much of the country'sfocus has been on the presidential race recently, and the campaignsto which LexElect is marketed have not begun yet and are "juststarting to get up and running."

He said that as these campaigns have been gearing up, interestin LexElect has increased. "We have written a couple of handfuls ofpolicies so far," Mr. Adams said. He added that there has beenequal interest at both the national and local levels.

Mr. Adams said that no other insurance company is offering asimilar package of coverages to political campaigns.

The brochure cited specific incidents that could arise during acampaign that would be covered by LexElect. They include: when anemployee let go from the campaign alleges discrimination; if avisitor is accidentally injured at campaign headquarters, and suesclaiming that the committee is liable; when a worker en route to acampaign event is in an automobile accident and several people areinjured and looking to the campaign for financial recourse; and ifa dishonest employee skims from the large amounts of cash movingthrough the campaign.

For more information about LexElect, visithttp://www.allrisks.com/xres/newsletters/html/dec6.html.