Extortion Benefit in K&R Policies
Extortion is far more common than "kidnap"
When people talk about Kidnap and Ransom Insurance and international security, most of the attention is on the actual abduction of the individual and the ransom lump sum benefit, but extortion is actually far more common, and a good kidnap and ransom insurance policy will need to address extortion.
Extortion: The use, or the express or implicit threat of the use of violence or other means to cause harm to person or property as a means to obtain something from someone else.
A note slipped under the door of an employee on an expatriate assignment saying “do this or else”is far more common than the actual abduction of the expatriate. A good K&R insurance policy offers consulting services that will investigate an extortion threat.
Some K&R policies also cover what is called products extortion, which is a threat to harm or contaminate the products of an organization. “Pay us $1,000,000 USD or your cola will contain arsenic” would be a classic example. Having products extortion attached would be useful for any company that sold a product in a certain country that was easily tampered with.
