After becoming dean of the University of Illinois business school in 2015, Jeffrey Brown worried that politics or a virus would choke off a major source of revenue for his school: Chinese graduate students.So, in 2017, along with the engineering school, Brown bought insurance worth up to $61 million to protect the university against such losses, including $36 million due to a pandemic. His worst fears came true earlier this year when the coronavirus hit.To get more news about China business school, you can visit acem.sjtu.edu.cn official website.But despite his foresight, things have not gone as planned.

A Reuters review of emails between school officials and insurance brokers, and interviews with people familiar with the situation show the university may get a payout to cover lower tuition revenue this year, but it can no longer get pandemic, visa restriction, or sanctions coverage.How the university, which first made headlines for its pioneering insurance coverage in late 2018 as the Trump administration ramped up its anti-China policies, lost the protection just when it needed it the most is detailed here for the first time. While it is known that insurers pulled back from various types of coverage in recent months and raised prices, the account provides new insight into how quickly the market deteriorated.

The university opened negotiations to renew its 2017 policy, which was scheduled to expire in May 2020, as early as the fall of last year, according to the emails, which were obtained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act request.The policy could have been renewed by Christmas last year, but a bureaucratic misstep necessitated a new broker, delaying the process, according to the emails and two of the sources.

That meant the virus hit as brokers at a Marsh & McLennan Co Inc MMC.N unit that took over were negotiating the renewal with lead insurer AXA XL through the Lloyds of London insurance marketplace.As weeks passed and the virus progressed, renewal options rapidly narrowed while costs increased. The university is now exploring a possible claim for the current year, according to the emails."We can hope the insurer/reinsurer outlook would be clearer in a year’s time,” Marsh executive Tarique Nageer wrote in an April 29 email to university officials.

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