When two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, was the ghastly destruction one attack or two?
Billions of dollars in insurance liability depend on the definition, which has sparked a lawsuit.
A company responsible for 22 percent of the US$3.5 billion insurance covering the World Trade Center filed a lawsuit Monday to head off any plans by the building's owners to define the assault as two attacks, thus doubling the coverage to US$7 billion.
SR International Business Insurance Co Ltd, a British company that is a unit of reinsurer Swiss Re, said it was "prepared to honor its insurance obligations" for the Sept. 11 attack that demolished the pair of 110-story buildings, but won't pay twice because two planes were used in the attack.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan, sought to deflate any expectations that an investor group led by Larry Silverstein might be entitled to US$7 billion if the crashes by separate planes are considered separate terrorist attacks.
Silverstein through his company, Silverstein WTC Properties, manages World Trade Center Properties, which owns each trade center complex building. A message left with New York-based parent company Silverstein Properties Inc was not immediately returned Monday.
SR International said it sought a declaration from the courts that the damage to the trade center is one insurance loss and are not multiple and unconnected losses.
It also asked the court to decide whether it owed its US$770 million solely to the investor group or rather to other entities including businesses harmed by the disaster.
According to the court papers, the Port Authority local government agency on July 16 entered into a 99-year lease with each of the trade center buildings and with a separate company for the retail mall.
The US$3.5 billion insurance purchased for the properties was far below the projected US$5.05 billion necessary to replace the buildings and cover the group's rental income losses after a catastrophic loss, the lawsuit said.
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