Willis Group Holdings on Wednesday announced the launch of Recall Shield, a new product contamination insurance product, in partnership with XL Group.

Recall Shield includes added protection for companies through XL Group’s product contamination insurance offering, which includes Response XL, a proactive crisis and risk management service delivered by retained specialist consultants.

Recall Shield offers greater protection with enhanced coverage and a number of additional benefits, including:

• Pre-incident consulting and training workshops from crisis management specialists.
• Discounted premiums.
• Free BRC training courses.
• Free insurance protection audit from the Willis Food and Drink Practice Group.

“Improving safety standards in the industry has never been more important, and now businesses that demonstrate a safer environment can also be rewarded with comprehensive insurance coverage and competitive premiums. We hope this will encourage more companies to take protection against these potentially catastrophic events,” said Simon Bridgwater, industry practice leader for Willis Food and Drink.

Mark Hutton, U.K. underwriting manager of Product Recall at XL Group, added: “In the food and beverage industry, a product recall can be costly. There are the financial costs associated with replacing and destroying the stock, but also the loss of consumer confidence and resulting loss of shareholder value can prove far more costly. The rise of social media means that news of a recall can spread like wild fire, so it is critical that companies have the right support in place. We understand this and wanted our clients to get more than financial risk transfer, so we developed Response XL, which provides all our product recall clients with 24/7 access to our specialist crisis, risk and issues management consultants.”

Source: Willis Group Holdings