Lloyd's officials estimate that some $10 billion?roughly 25 percent of the total World Trade Center loss?can be attributed to business interruption coverage.

"Once upon a time, when people thought about insuring terrorism, they only thought about property insurance," said Julian James, director of worldwide markets at Lloyd's. "Now it's clear that business interruption has become just as important."

Indeed, the Sept. 11 attacks radically changed the attitudes of U.S. CFOs towards terrorism exposures, sending demand for coverage of domestic assets soaring. The survey of 50 Fortune 1000 CFOs on behalf of Lloyd's found that two out of three firmly believe their company's U.S. assets to be more of a terrorist target now than their overseas people and properties.

While this development might appear to be obvious following the devastating events of Sept. 11, it still represents a "sea change in attitude towards the need for terrorism coverage in the U.S.," according to David James, terrorism underwriter for Ascot Underwriting at Lloyd's.

Historically, the need for terrorism coverage has been focused on properties in countries "characterized by political and civil instability, such as in South America and the Middle East," Lloyd's noted in a statement released here yesterday with the survey results during the Risk and Insurance Management Society's annual conference.

"Prior to Sept. 11, the United States market accounted for as little as 1 percent of the typical terrorism underwriter's book of business," Lloyd's noted. "But after Sept. 11, the figures derived from North America for Ascot's terrorism business has grown to over 80 percent."

More disturbing for insurers is the fact that 64 percent of CFOs surveyed said they have "little or no confidence in the insurance industry's ability to provide a comprehensive package to protect against any future terrorist attacks," Lloyd's said.

Making matters worse is that risk managers must confront the threats posed by "new style terrorists," who, unlike their "old-style" counterparts in the 1960s through the 1980s, are not merely looking to kidnap or kill a relatively small number of people to attract media attention to their grievances and cause, according to L. Paul Bremer, head of the crisis consulting practice for Marsh in New York.

Instead, the "new-style terrorists are out to "kill as many people as possible" as part of an "asymmetric war against countries like the U.S. that are no longer vulnerable to conventional military attacks," he explained at a Marsh client breakfast this morning during the RIMS conference.

As a result, he said, "crisis management today needs to be elevated," adding that the "good news is that crisis management can be taught, can be learned, and can be put in place quickly."