Mr. Hubbard spoke to NU about the outbreak coverage on the same day that Swine flu cases worldwide reached the 1,000 mark, when Mr. Buffett reportedly said his insurance operations could offer a pricey form of pandemic coverage.

Berkshire's offering would reportedly be a form of life insurance or reinsurance--a policy that would be triggered by the U.S. mortality rate rising by 25 percent in 2010--Markel's offering is a form of business interruption coverage, a property-casualty coverage.

Markel's coverage is not triggered by a global pandemic, but instead responds when a specific contagion--like flu, meningitis, mononucleosis, MRSA (an antibiotic resistant skin infection), SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), and bacteria like salmonella or e-coli (which trigger food borne illnesses)--closes a specific insured business location, Mr. Hubbard said.

"What insureds wish for, what society wishes for is...the magic bullet"--insurance that will respond "if there is a true global pandemic, a true outbreak of massive nature," Mr. Hubbard said.

Referring to some U.S. government documents put together when the Avian flu was spreading some years back, he noted that the documents reveal that the economic impact of a pandemic would be somewhere between 5-12 percent of gross domestic product.

"That is a massive, massive number," he said. "There's what insurance can do, and what society will have to do," he said.

Markel's policy will respond if a public health official orders a specific insured building or operation to close, he said.

Covered contagions and public health officials are broadly defined in the policy, he said, noting that the latter can include anyone from local county officials to officials of the Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control.

He said a, "perfect example of what we would trigger coverage on" occurred in Hong Kong, when a government health official quarantined a hotel, which had a group of guests that had visited Mexico, one of whom had gotten sick, he said, noting that another component of the coverage trigger is the requirement that the disease or bacteria forcing a closure must be present on the insured's premises.

"We can pay them because of the fortuitousness of that event. When it becomes a societal event," or there are sweeping geographic closures--"for that no insurance company could possibly offer the kind of limits everyone would need," he said, referencing reports of Mr. Buffett's remarks with regard to insuring pandemics.

"He may come up with something creative. But as they look at this, everyone has to be aware of what insurance can do, and what insurance cannot do."

Giving further details of Markel's Outbreak coverage, Mr. Hubbard explained that unlike a traditional business interruption policy, policyholders are not required to provide numerical details of their economic losses to the insurer.

Instead, the policy pays a selected per-day limit ranging from $2,500 per day up to $50,000 per day per location for a maximum of 30 days, he said, adding that insureds use the per-day amount at their discretion for whatever extra expenses they choose, such as public relations costs, decontamination expenses or costs to continuing paying employees, for example.

Giving a sense of the cost of coverage, Mr. Hubbard said a $5,000 per-day limit, providing $150,000 of coverage for the 30-day maximum timeframe would be roughly costing $1,500 for each location.

Demand for the product had been modest until recently, he said. "The Swine flu has certainly raised the specter of contagion risk to a new level for insurance buyers," he said. "The volume of phone calls across Markel has picked up dramatically over the last 10 days," Mr. Hubbard said.

Markel's Outbreak Extra Expense Coverage is available through all its distribution partners--wholesalers and retailers, although sales so far all come through wholesalers.

Markel is not the only insurer to offer coverage related to disease outbreaks. Last July, Lexington Insurance, a Boston-based unit of AIU Holdings announced Pandemic Rx, an endorsement to its commercial property policy for acute care medical facilities.

Noting that pandemic flu would put a financial strain on health care providers, with increased hospital admissions driving reduced revenues (because pricier elective procedures might have to be canceled), a press statement about Lexington's product said the endorsement would pay for up to six months of income loss during a pandemic flu event.

The income loss could result from increased expenses required to render care (to procure vaccines, antibiotics, hygiene supplies and medical equipment) or reduced reimbursement due to a shift in case mix.