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Lloyds of London to Offer Open Source Insurance
darkworm writes "Lloyds of London, the world's oldest insurance house, is to offer indemnification for IP litigation worldwide according to the Channel Register: 'Lloyd's of London is close to offering independent insurance protection worldwide against potential IP litigation involving Linux and open source software. The financial services giant has agreed to take on the risk associated with open source, and is finalizing arrangements to work through Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) who will become Lloyd's sole U.S. representative.'"
Lloyds has a three-hundred year history or ups and downs, it's the insurance industry (quite literally, the insurance industry was created out of Lloyd's, then a coffee house dedicated to maritime shipping).
While I don't doubt that Lloyds has problems, has had problems, will have problems, they are known as a gold standard. It's not a single entity, it's a market, much like the stock market. There are large syndicates, made up of names (investors) who are the ones who actually are taking the risk. Lloyds is the gold standard because they have shown time and time again that they will not allow themselves to go bust. In whole or part. If a syndicate can not pay it's liabilities, then Lloyds governing body pays, with all of the other names sharing the cost. It's expensive, especially considering that they are covering policies they aren't legally reponsible for. But it's worked for 300 years, I still have faith in them.
Also, the financial fraud/troubles your link points out are from 80s and 90s. Lloyds was either the largest or second largest reinsurer (the ones who actually had to pay) on the World Trade Center, and they paid that claim (billions), so I would assume they're not in that much trouble.
Ryan Stultz