Crime good for business
THE BATTALION
MONDAY, OCTOBER 13. 1980
Page 5
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A Hon who's on the ball
This big cat or one of his friends will perform in Circus Vargus,
which is coming to Bryan for four performances Oct. 27 and
28. Billed as “America’s Big Top Giant,” the circus includes
acts with 100 international artists and 150 animals. Ticket
| prices range from $4 to $8.50.
$50 million asked
for 'thinking' box
et at 5:30 pi
't at 6:30 pi
United Press International
NEW YORK — Investors always
believe their ideas are valuable but
Dr. Sidney Auerbach, a noted patho-
7 legist, raised some eyebrows by put-
rtat ‘ : ^n ting a minimum price of $50 million
on a nonexclusive license to his new
.m. in 410fi “portable thinking machine.”
He wants $1 million just for the
att j s right to view and test the system for
three months.
neetat7:30p j jy Kershaw of Control Data
Worldtech, Inc., of St. Paul, the
nanCluband technology marketing service of
Mary’s Still Control Data Corp., the firm that has
a contract to market Auerbach’s in-
at 8 d m at' Vent ' on > admitted he was startled
and decidedly skeptical when the
doctor gave his ideas of what it is
worth.
“Nevertheless,” Kershaw said,
"such companies as IBM, ITT, RCA
and Western Union have shown a
£1 C definite interest in Dr. Auerbach’s
O thinking machine, a portable which
really is a pattern recognition device
that can process and analyze alpha-
Y| Ck numeric and graphic data in about
J. J.V / one two-thousandth of the time re
quired by conventional systems.”
Auerbach pioneered the concept
of pattern recognition 17 years ago.
His original idea was to use compu-
xas seem tot
nt past.
Dut 10 miri -
-ide called It * er data and optical scanning to pro-
d of nauseaf
own until it#
vide 100 percent accurate medical
diagnoses, prognoses and treatment
recommendations.
“As a pathologist,” he said, “I’ve
seen countless breasts removed
needlessly and limbs amputated un
necessarily. Pathologists, radiolog
ists and others in my profession sel
dom are permitted the luxury of
lengthy deliberation.”
So he worked up a pattern recog
nition device that could tap all kinds
of data banks and scan X-rays,
pathology slides, graphs and other
information documents at a rate of 30
a second, analyze them and present
conclusions and recommendations
without intermediary human input.
He formed a firm called Auerbach
Computer Telephone Corp. to ex
ploit it.
The new portable Auerbach optic
al scanner can review all kinds of
information, drawings or photo
graphs, other graphics, oodles of text
matter and data gathered by radar or
sonar, transmitted from anywhere in
the world by telephone or telex, pro
cess and analyze all of it and present
conclusions within a second or so.
Auerbach says the system’s error
rate is less than one in 12 trillion bits
of information.
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★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
? EXPERIENCED
COMPETENT
EFFECTIVE
RE-ELECT
(A&M CLASS OF '71)
FOR
Brazos County Attorney
(Pol. Ad Paid by John M. Barron, Jr., Box 4146, Biyan, Texas 77801)
»¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥
GRANCEi
■GIES:
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ance Groif|
823®
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ERVICE
sfactmti |
uipmenl
xas Ave,
:516
MSC Arts
Committee
presents
The Community Singers
of Brazos Valley
performing
"Songs of the Civil War"
Monday, October 13, 1980
Rudder Theatre 8 p.m.
Tickets on Sale at the MSC Box Office
Kidnap policies increase
United Press International
NEW YORK — Among the many hazards Americans
insure themselves against, there’s one you’ll never hear
discussed.
To reveal that you have kidnaping and ransom insur
ance results in automatic cancellation of the policy, says
Joseph P. DeAlessandro, president of National Union
Fire Insurance Co., one of the American International
Group companies that writes a lot of such policies.
DeAlessandro says the secrecy provision is fairly stan
dard and for an obvious reason: If terrorists, or ordinary
criminals, know a businessman or his company has such
insurance they are likely to operate on the theory that
collecting ransom will be easier since “nobody gets hurt
but the insurance company.”
K&R insurance, first written as a result of the political
terrorism of the early 1970s, is a fast-growing business,
especially in the United States, where so many large
companies have executives working abroad who are
prime targets, say DeAlessandro and Robert Lynyak, a
vice president of Chubb Corp.
National Union, Chubb and Lloyd’s of London write
most of the business, with INA Corp. a recent entry.
It has been estimated kidnappings worldwide have
increased some 300 percent in the past decade, with
rhaps a 400 percent rise in Latin America, a particu-
arly hot spot.
Companies selling general security services such as
Guardsmark Inc., of Memphis; Wackenhut, of Coral
Gables, Fla., and others, steer K&R business to the
insurance companies.
Ira Lipman, president of Guardsmark, said his firm
tailors insurance for its clients and then gets one of the
major insurers to write the policy.
Lipman and Chubb’s Lynyak agreed the need for
K&R insurance domestically has increased steadily be
cause the Bank Protection Act of 1968 gradually forced
most professional bank robbers to look for new and less
dangerous criminal activity. The more vicious of them
have turned to kidnaping where now there is less likeli
hood of being caught, they said.
Lynyak said he has written some 2,000 K&R policies
and demand is growing. The major market is American
companies who operate in Latin America. Although
Italy appears to have more kidnapings than any other
country, he said, Americans usually are not the targets.
“The Italians kidnap each other,” he said, “and as far
as I can tell, they mostly don’t buy ransom insurance.”
For protection against ransom demands in the United
States, Lynyak said, companies usually buy $1 million or
$2 million or so. Those with offices in Latin America will
buy $10 million to $20 million in coverage because when
political terrorists stage a kidnaping they want to collect
ransom big enough to buy weapons to use in a revolu
tion.
This makes K&R a matter of not-too-frequent but
large claims, DeAlessandro and Lynyak agreed, so the
policies generally are reinsured. A $10 million policy for
a company with branches in Latin America could cost
$50,000 a year, they said.
Setting the rates is a “seat of the pants” affair, Lynyak
said. You have to figure not only on paying a ransom, but
some on high expenses such as fees for intermediaries to
negotiate with the kidnapers. Setting the rates involves
a close watch on the political climate in the countries
involved in the coverage.
Lynyak said the market includes at least 1,000 U.S.
companies interested in coverage for their overseas ex
ecutives alone.
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