Every day as I review the ISO circulars, I see more terrorism forms being filed due to the reenactment of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (TRIA). TRIA is a federal law that was approved on Nov. 26, 2002. The act created a federal backstop for insurance claims related to acts of terrorism. It was intended as a temporary measure to allow time for the insurance industry to develop their own solutions and products to insure against acts of terrorism. The act, as reauthorized in 2007, will continue through Dec. 31, 2014.

TRIA put the U.S. government into the reinsurance business. The implementing procedures are based on best practices of commercial reinsurers, and much of the language is straight out of our familiar insurance policies.

One of the purposes of TRIA was to establish requirements for insurers to follow to obtain payment of the federal share of insured losses from a terrorist event. But not just any terrorist event; the event must be certified by the Secretary of Treasury, in concurrence with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, to be an act that is dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure and to have resulted in damage within the U.S. (or outside the U.S. in the case of a U.S-flagged vessel, or on the premises of a U.S. mission). That's claim settlement, and that's what this magazine is all about. So what else does it say?