Glastonbury, CT: Nuke Insurance Capital of the US

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In an unassuming three story brick building at 95 Glastonbury Boulevard in the Hartford suburb of the same name you will find American Nuclear Insurers.

ANI, as it prefers to be called, provides insurance to the 103 currently operating commercial US nuclear reactors, including the Millstone nukes in Waterford.

The company’s origins go back to the 1950s. The federal government was encouraging the development of nuclear power through its “Atoms For Peace” program. But no insurance company was willing to risk providing coverage because of the prohibitive cost of messy nuke possibilities like meltdowns.

To get around this slight problem, pro-nuke forces pushed the Price-Anderson Act through Congress, which limited nuke plant financial liabilities for personal and property damages in case a catastrophic nuke “incident” came to be.

These same pro-nuke forces (e.g. the feds, GE and Westinghouse) cajoled the insurance industry into forming a pool of companies to provide the token coverage required by Price-Anderson for nuke plants.

And so ANI was born.

Since in those days Hartford was the self proclaimed insurance capital of the nation, ANI was sited in the area, initially in Farmington.

“Today, much of the financial protection is provided by about 60 U.S. property and casualty insurance companies, who are ‘members’ of ANI,” the company states. “They represent some of the largest insurers in the country.”

True Costs

Pro-nukers don’t like to talk much about things like meltdowns. Nor about the cost of damages caused by such “incidents.”

But back in1982 Sandia National Laboratory delivered a study of these costs for a serious accident at each of the nation’s nukes to a Congressional committee.

The report found that a severe meltdown at Millstone reactor 2 would cause 18,000 “peak early fatalities,” 18,000 “peak early injuries,” 33,000 “peak cancer deaths,” and $91.5 billion in property damages—in 1980 dollars.

For Millstone reactor 3 the calculations were 23,000 early deaths, 30,000 injuries, 38,000 cancer deaths, and $174 billion in property damages.

Millstone reactor 1 shut down permanently in 1996, but its spent fuel pool is still full of highly radioactive stuff that could cause a huge nuclear “incident.”

Rest assured that Millstone’s actual insurance coverage with ANI is only for pennies on all these dollars.

The report also stated that Millstone’s “peak fatality radius” was 20 miles, and its “peak injury radius” was 65 miles, the latter including most of Connecticut.

But business was booming for ANI during the ‘60s and ‘70s, until the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island in 1979. ANI had to cough up $300 million, the maximum amount of coverage, after that “incident,” and subsequently another $70 million to settle lawsuits out of court. No new US nukes were ordered after the “incident.”

When the USSR’s Chernobyl nuke blew in the Ukraine in 1987, business went flat at ANI, and stayed that way thereafter. “That was the only time I ever saw them sweat,” a former employee who worked there then said recently.

New Nukes

Now however, Bush and nuke companies like Dominion (Millstone’s owner) are attempting a “Nuclear Renaissance.”

Last November Millstone got permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew its operating licenses so that Millstone 2 can operate until 2035 and Millstone 3 until 2045.

They’re not alone. Altogether 50 nuclear power stations comprising 72 reactors have been granted such 20 year license extensions, are applying for them, or plan to apply in the future. Of course this means 20 extra years of insurance premiums per reactor for ANI.

The Pilgrim reactor on Cape Cod and the Vermont Yankee nuke near Brattleboro planned to put in their applications this January.

Entergy, the owner of those nukes, and Dominion, are also in the forefront of energy companies that are planning to build new nuclear plants. And the Bush Energy bill passed last year will provides billions of dollars in taxpayers money to help make their radioactive dreams come true.

Also included in the Bush Energy bill was renewal of Price-Anderson.

All this is good news that will mean even better business for ANI. In 2004 one of its top executives, John Quattrocchi, told National Underwriter, an industry magazine, “We think this is exciting time for the nuclear industry and for us insurers.”

Not so exciting however are the high cancer rates and other health problems that constant radioactive emissions from nuclear plants contribute to. New London County, home of Millstone, has the highest state incidence rate of cancers for females, and second highest for males.

Then there is the ever present threat of a catastrophic accident, the deadly nuclear waste that keeps piling up, the vulnerability of nukes to attack.

Hereabouts the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone is fighting to stop this madness by shutting the nukes down. You can contact them at: www.mothballmillstone.org.

Michael Steinberg is the author of Millstone and Me: Sex, Lies and Radiation in Southeastern Connecticut.