After looking at another thread over Scale Train related stuff: Detailing GN passenger cars, I got wondering about liability insurance. Do railroads, when they ran passenger service and Amtrak today, insure based on head count? The entire endeavor: train set, passengers, etc, per run? Pay an annual premium that covers everything? How does that side of the business work?
Steve
Railroads which had a lot of cash were self-insured. That would be roads like Great Northern, Santa Fe, and Union Pacific. Southern Pacific and most Eastern roads were not self-insured, at least not in the postwar era.
Others -- most, actually -- bought catastrophic casualty insurance that kicked in if there was a bad wreck that exceeded a specified dollar amount of injury or death claims, or excessive property damage.
The average passenger claim would not have needed insurance.
Today, all railroads carry catastrophic casualty insurance, and pay the day-to-day claims themselves.
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