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Industry Practice · Heavy industry & manufacturing

Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences

Insurance for pharma manufacturers, formulators, contract research and biotech operators, product, plant, regulatory and clinical risk.

Product contamination & recallCold-chain cargo lossClinical trial liability
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The sector

A regulated sector where the product, the plant and the data are all separately exposed.

Pharmaceutical operations sit at the intersection of high-capex sterile manufacturing, regulated product distribution and rising cyber/data exposure under DPDPA. The insurance programme spans IPP, product recall, clinical trial liability, cargo (often cold-chain) and increasingly cyber. Generic 'pharma policies' miss most of this.

Risk profile

Where the exposure lives.

Pharma runs product liability, plant, cold-chain and recall risk in parallel. These are the four we scope first.

01
Product contamination & recall
Batch contamination triggers recall costs, lost product value and regulatory exposure. Standard PI does not cover recall costs.
02
Cold-chain cargo loss
Biologics, vaccines and temperature-sensitive APIs require specific cold-chain marine cover with breakdown and deterioration.
03
Clinical trial liability
Adverse events in clinical research expose the sponsor to compensation claims and regulatory liability.
04
DPDPA & data breach
Patient and clinical data carries elevated privacy obligations under DPDPA, cyber cover and notification cost provisions are essential.
Recommended cover

The programme we typically place.

Each cover below is a link to the policy page. The combination, the limits and the wording are what we negotiate on your behalf.

01
Fire & Burglary
IPP Fire cover for sterile manufacturing, formulation and warehousing with high sums insured.
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02
Marine Insurance
Cargo cover with temperature-sensitive cold-chain extensions and deterioration clauses.
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03
Cyber Insurance
Data breach, ransomware and DPDPA notification cost cover for patient and clinical records.
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04
Public Liability
Combined PL and products liability with batch-recall extension and worldwide jurisdiction.
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05
Workmen Compensation
EC Act with occupational disease cover for solvent, API and sterile-environment exposure.
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Claim reality

What a claim tends to look like here.

A defining exposure is a product or batch problem leading to recall, alongside plant fire and cold-chain failure that spoils temperature-sensitive stock. A recall can dwarf the physical loss.

Questions

Questions we get in this sector.

Yes, product-recall cover responds to the cost of withdrawing affected product from the market, which standard product-liability cover usually excludes. We place it where regulatory recall is a real exposure.
Deterioration-of-stock cover pays for temperature-sensitive stock spoiled by a covered breakdown of refrigeration. We add it wherever cold chain is central to the product.
Only with a deterioration of stock extension, and it responds to spoilage following a covered breakdown or power failure. Without it, the stock loss from a failed chiller is uninsured even when the chiller itself is covered.
Critically. Pharmaceutical claims brought in North America or Europe are underwritten as an entirely different risk from domestic ones, and the territory and jurisdiction clauses decide whether an export claim is covered at all.
No. Clinical trial liability is a distinct cover with its own regulatory requirements, and a general product liability policy does not extend to it.

Need a sector-specific risk review?

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