Posted On: October 11, 2006, 8:29 pm CDT

Posted By: Joe Petrelli

Even if the insurance company issuing a HO policy is not publicly traded, the odds are its reinsurer is. The shareholders of that reinsurer require a substantial rate of return to justify the reinsurer's participation in the Florida property insurance marketplace.

We should have a sense of the havoc that inadequate rates and accomodation underwriting wreak, it is often summarized in residual market mechanisms.

Publicly traded reinsurers compete for capital with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., not just with each other.

Cut the primary insurance company some slack, they do not want high reinsurance costs anymore than consumers do.