Genetic engineering is potentially one of the most "exposed technologies of the future", says the report "Genetic engineering and liability insurance"  of The Zürich-based Swiss Re, an influential re-insurance company (such firms insure the risks of insurance companies). "Is the insurance industry perhaps being too rash in its dealings with genetic engineering?" it wonders. 

The report questions the possibilities of insurance companies to fulfil their role as risk carriers to the genetic engineering industry. It says that the insurance industry "must have a clear conception of the nature and size of those risks". How can genetic engineering risks be insured, asks the report, when there is no clear conception of them?  "Today we must assume that the one-sided acceptance of incalculable risks means than any participants in this insurance market run the risk not only of suffering heavy losses, but also of loosing control over their exposure". 

Essentially the same thinking is found in the May 6 issue of The Post, an insurance magazine, where an underwriting manager for insurance giant Cigna International suggested business insurers go slow on policies which cover GM-selling companies. "Our experience with asbestos, PCBs and other "miracle" products in the past should have warned us of the potential dangers of diving into issues before we have an adequate awareness of the exposures," wrote Cigna official Maunce Pullen.

Comment: This agrees well with our conclusion that there is highly insufficient knowledge about health and environmental risks from GE foods and crops. Such statements are likely to greatly decrease the possibilities of GE companies to obtain risk insurance in the future. As presently marketed GE foods have not been tested properly, there is a risk for a large scale disaster, that would lead to a crash of an uninsured or insufficiently insured GE company. (For food safety, see Substantial equivalence versus scientific food safety assessment [EL] ).