Today, specialists take on the entire crisis management after a kidnapping, from looking after the relatives to negotiations with the kidnappers, from estimating the right amount of ransom to cooperating with the police, according to the science website The Conversation. The kidnapping experts sometimes operate in a gray area.
Different countries have taken different approaches to dealing with the kidnapping of their nationals, according to the British Guardian. Britain, along with the US, has long been a representative of the “no concessions” camp, which officially refuses to negotiate with terrorists, pay ransoms or make any other concessions. It is feared that paying ransom increases the risk of future kidnappings. In addition, money would also get into the hands of terrorist organizations with which ongoing operations could be financed, according to the reasoning.
Looking for new clients in the drug war
The big business with kidnapping insurance started in 1982, as the Guardian writes. The British insurance broker Doug Milne was looking for new customers, ideally he also hoped for a new business field.
Milne went to the Colombian capital Bogota with little knowledge of Spanish and only two contacts and witnessed the beginning of the extremely bloody drug war between the cartels themselves and with the Colombian police and army. Kidnappings were more or less the order of the day in the sometimes almost belligerent conflict.
First ideas after Lindbergh kidnapping
Although insurance against kidnapping already existed at this time, it was virtually unknown. The first kidnap and ransom insurance policies were issued in 1932, according to the New York Review of Books. It was “invented” in the wake of the sensational Lindbergh kidnapping that kept the world press in suspense for months.
The pilot Charles Lindbergh had achieved world fame with the first non-stop flight from the USA across the Atlantic to France. Celebrated as a national hero in the USA, Lindbergh was criticized for his political views and speeches as a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite in the 1940s, but even before that his life took a tragic turn. His two-year-old son was kidnapped on March 1, 1932, and a ransom was paid. On May 12, the toddler was finally discovered dead.
Kidnapping wave from the 1960s
However, the new kidnapping insurance policies were not a real sales success. It was only in the 1960s, after a series of sensational kidnappings of business people and their families in Europe and Latin America, that companies began to take out such insurance policies for high-ranking employees and their families. Above all, terrorist organizations such as the Spanish ETA, the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy were responsible for the kidnappings alongside the mafia in Europe.
Secret clause should minimize risk
This type of kidnapping insurance had a major flaw, as the New York Review of Books writes. The insurers were not involved in the negotiation process. At that time, the insurance companies actually only had one task: to reimburse the ransom.
However, there were several conditions imposed by the insurance companies. The policy had to be kept secret so as not to increase the risk of being kidnapped. It was also feared that if the kidnappers knew about the policy, they would demand more ransom, according to the Guardian.
Relatives still had to negotiate themselves
Should kidnappings become more lucrative, it was also feared that the number of kidnappings would increase. It was also intended to prevent people who had already been kidnapped from being kidnapped again because of the high ransom. Another principle of insurance: ransom is not advanced.
The disadvantages for the insured: their relatives or the employees of the companies they worked for had to work with the police to negotiate with the kidnappers, right through to handing over the ransom – and they were usually overwhelmed.
Professionalization push with full service
A solution to this finally emerged in the 1970s. According to the New York Review of Books, a young insurance broker, Julian Radcliff, had the brilliant idea: a security company specializing in kidnapping cases was needed. First as a department at Lloyds, later as a separate company, specialists from Control Risks provided the necessary know-how to handle kidnapping cases as well as possible for the victims. The experts were recruited primarily from the ranks of the military and police and relied on their previous experience.
Potential victims are also checked
And changes also took hold in customer acceptance. With the consent of the future policy holders, potential kidnapping victims were thoroughly checked in secret and suggestions for security measures were made. If these were implemented, for example security personnel were hired, the houses were better secured and the like lured the insurance company with discounts on the premiums.
The handling in the event of a kidnapping was also renewed. The specialists then advised the families or employers of the kidnapping victims. Because they had to continue to communicate with the kidnappers, otherwise the kidnappers would have gotten wind of the insurance and could have increased their claims. Once the ransom was fixed, it was handed over by the professionals and, ideally, the hostage was returned healthy.
Courses for the right behavior as an innovation
Eventually, Control Risks faced competition from the United States. A former CIA agent, Mike Ackerman, started his own company — unlike Control Risks, which had a larger staff, he did almost everything himself, according to the New York Review of Books. He also negotiated with the kidnappers as a supposed family member or boss of the victim and handed over the ransom.
Finally, Milne, who expanded his kidnapping policy business from Colombia to all of Latin America in the early 1980s, went to London and, with his know-how and numerous employees with professional experience in the police and military, also set up a branch in Europe. His innovation: He offered courses that were designed to minimize the risk of kidnapping and also taught how a victim should behave towards his kidnappers, should the worst come to the worst.
75 percent of Fortune 500 companies insured
Eventually he managed to get the insurance companies to cover the costs of his courses, because potential victims and insurance companies have an interest in minimizing the likelihood of a kidnapping, as the Guardian writes. According to the newspaper, 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies have such insurance for vulnerable employees. Two insurers, Hiscox in the UK and AIG in the US, currently set the tone in the industry, it said. But numerous security companies have also specialized in kidnapping cases.
According to the Guardian, hostage negotiation has already become something of an industry — including conferences, conventions and joint strategies, as well as lobbying for government regulations. The most important thing is confidentiality. This should make the ransom as low as possible and the business for the criminals as unprofitable as possible, as the Washington Post writes. According to the newspaper, Nigeria, Mexico, Iraq, Mali and Colombia are considered “hotspots” for kidnappings.
Good chances of survival
According to the newspaper, the success of the industry is impressive. 97 percent of kidnappings involving professional negotiators are successfully resolved by paying ransom. A small percentage of the victims manage to escape, only a few have to be rescued from the hands of their kidnappers in costly, high-risk operations.
Less than 1 percent of victims are killed, according to the Guardian, citing industry figures. Uninsured people would cost hostage negotiators up to $2,000 a day, according to the New York Review of Books. The magazine estimates sales in the industry at around 250 to 300 million per year.