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A new Kansas law allowing gun owners to carry weapons in public buildings, including schools, has thrust a major Des Moines-based insurer into the national gun control debate.

The EMC Insurance Cos. insures 85 percent to 90 percent of all Kansas school districts and has refused to renew coverage for schools that permit teachers and custodians to carry concealed firearms on their campuses under the new law, which took effect July 1. It’s not a political decision, but a financial one based on the riskier climate it estimates would be created, the insurer said.

“We’ve been writing school business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers,” said Mick Lovell, EMC’s vice president for business development. “Our guidelines have not recently changed.”

The law is similar to one in Utah. Around the country, firearms groups have called on schools to let teachers and staff carry weapons to protect children and prevent mass shootings.

A smaller Des Moines-area insurer — Continental Western Group, based in Urbandale — has followed EMC’s lead with a similar position in response to the new law, according to the Kansas Association of School Boards’ insurance program.

So has Wright Specialty Insurance, based in New York.

Bob Skow, chief executive officer of the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa, said he’s not surprised by the companies’ decisions. Insurance is all about risk and about pricing the cost of coverage in a way that correctly reflects it. That’s one of the reasons many schools have gotten rid of their trampolines, he said.

“It’s one thing to have a trained peace officer with a gun in school; it’s a completely different situation when you have a custodian or a teacher with a gun,” Skow said. “That changes the risk of insuring a school and magnifies it considerably.”

Insurers simply don’t know how to price the added risk yet, but they know it’s there. While a trampoline can hurt one person, modern weapons have the potential to kill many people very quickly, he said.

“This is a logical response from insurers to a risk nightmare,” Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said. “Putting a teacher or an administrator with little firearms training in a school with a loaded weapon is clearly a threat to everyone, including the kids.”

Forrest Knox, the Kansas state senator who is the chief advocate of the new gun law, maintains that having legal guns in schools and other government buildings could prevent injuries. He’s been pushing the legislation for years.

“I’m not an insurance expert, but it’s hard for me to believe that if schools and other public buildings allow law-abiding citizens to carry that that increases risk — it’s news to me,” Knox said. More at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130707/BUSINESS/307070054/K
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