The 2010 Directors and Officers (D&O) Liability survey, the 32nd in a series of studies conducted by Towers Watson, tracks D&O coverage purchasing patterns, providing organizations with critical information on the structure and cost of D&O insurance programs.

Highlights of the 2010 survey include:

• D&O limit increase. Twenty-one percent of respondents said they had increased their D&O limits compared to their prior D&O policy (versus 12% in 2008), while 75% said their limits had stayed the same (versus 86% in 2008). Only 3% said they had decreased their limits.

• International coverage. Fifty-three percent of respondents (excluding charities and nonprofits) said their companies have international operations. Of this figure, 47% purchased a local D&O policy in a foreign jurisdiction. This is a marked increase over our 2008 survey results, when only 2% of respondents with international operations purchased a local policy in a foreign jurisdiction.

• D&O program review. When asked if they had conducted an independent review of their D&O program within the past two years, 54% of respondents said that they had not.

• Claims. This year’s survey findings suggest increased apprehension over regulatory claims. When asked to rank the types of claims of greatest concern, direct shareholder/investor suits topped the list, followed by regulatory claims and employment-related litigation. The top three types of claims of greatest concern overall were regulatory claims, followed by direct shareholder claims and derivative claims.

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