Small size - large impact - Nanowerk

Insurance
Walter R. Stahel is
Vice General Secretary of
the Geneva Association,
Switzerland
Opposite:
Individual leaf cells
10 -5
10 micrometers
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The insurability of
emerging technologies
Walter R. Stahel
Insurability could be the natural risk management borderline between Nation States
and the market economy: what is insurable need not be legislated. 1
Nanotechnology is marked by a broad diversity of applications and has been with
us for a long time, a fact largely unknown to the general public. 2
Nanotechnology is “insured” today in the sense that it is not excluded from most
insurance treaties.
One conclusion drawn from the conference is that nanotechnology and nanoparticles
have to be examined specifically for each application. The term “nanotechnology”
should therefore be abandoned in favour of many specific terms, such as “nanotubes”.
Each new “nano” application could then be treated as a new chemical – this is one
of the recommendations of the report by the Royal Society. 3
From a toxicological point of view, the main hazards from nanotechnology relate
to particles that are not firmly embedded in another material. This situation occurs
mainly in their production and in the end-of-life phase (recycling, incineration)
of the goods in which they are embedded. Only time will tell if there is a limit
of bioaccumulation to certain free particles by the human body, and what that limit
is. Paracelsus contended that many materials act as a medicine in a small dosage,
and a poison in a large dosage.
From an insurability point of view, the question of bioaccumulation of particles could
be crucial.
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