Retroactive Liability and the Insurability of Long-Tail Risks

This article focuses on a specific aspect of liability insurance that arises out of the latent nature of certain insured events. In particular, it is concerned with the fact that in the interval between the original tort and the claim for damages the standard of care applied by the courts may change. This is the problem of retroactive liability. The article begins by briefly reviewing the legal background to the retrospective application of liability rules. Then it formally addresses the question of how retroactive liability can be reconciled with the goals of tort law and whether retroactive liability is insurable. © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc.