Latest Market Headlines

All the headlines from our Market Topic Page, ordered by recency.

P/C Direct Premium Up Nearly 4.5% for All-Time Industry High

Jul 1 2013 // Direct premium growth for property/casualty insurance companies continues to increase. At year-end 2012, more than $523 billion of direct premium written (DPW) was reported, an all-time high for the industry. For 2012,...

How Should Insurance Agencies use Twitter?

Jun 26 2013 // This post is part of a series on insurance marketing and training sponsored by Astonish. Twitter is a social media platform that all insurance agencies should be using in this day and age. Why? Because it is free to use,...

EPLI in Southern California Playing ‘Hard’ to Get

Jun 25 2013 // Employment practices in California is a known and growing concern for insurers, agents and employers, and that concern has some carriers ramping up rates dramatically or quietly pulling back from the area, say those...

Swiss Re Publishes ‘Corporate Responsibility’ Report;’Sustainable’Insurance Goals

Jun 19 2013 // Swiss Re announced the publication of its “2012 Corporate Responsibility Report,” which it said “enhances its accountability by reporting against the Principles for Sustainable Insurance for the first...

Analysts: Travelers/Dominion Deal Makes Sense, More U.S.-Canadian M&A May Follow

Jun 18 2013 // The Travelers Companies’ decision to acquire Dominion of Canada General Insurance, a unit of E-L Financial Corp., for $1.1 billion makes strategic sense, according to analysts. The acquisition now allows Travelers to...

Can You Have It All?

Jun 17 2013 // One question often asked of women but not of men in the business world is: Can you have it “all”? Is it possible to have both a successful career as an independent agent and a family? That’s something men...

Federal Insurance Regulator Releases Annual Report

Jun 12 2013 // The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) today released its annual report on the insurance industry to the President and Congress. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer...

Geneva Association’s Fitzpatrick on Systemic Risks, Nat Cats, ILS, Cyber Risks

Jun 11 2013 // When the Geneva Association’s presentation on how and why governments and re/insurers need to work more closely adjourned, we were able to talk to the organization’s Secretary General, John Fitzpatrick, a...

Game Changer: Agency Download with the Leader in CRM

Jun 10 2013 // Westerville, OH, 6/10/13 – Revolution Group, a Silver Salesforce.com Cloud Alliance Partner and leading technology integration provider specializing in the property/casualty segment of the insurance industry, is...

Governments and Re/Insurers Should Work Together to Face Rising Disaster Costs

Jun 6 2013 // A presentation from the Geneva Association (GA), the international insurance think tank for strategically important insurance and risk management issues, calls for a long awaited dialogue between the industry and all...

Women (Not Men) Get Asked: Can You Have It All?

Jun 4 2013 // Can you have it “all”? It’s one of the questions that women in business get asked a lot but men are never asked. It’s also one of the questions fielded by a panel of women insurance industry...

FERMA Warns Restrictions Could Damage Subscription Market

Jun 4 2013 // The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) has issued a warning to the European Commission that any restriction in the operation of the subscription insurance market could work to the disadvantage of...

Hurricane Season and Florida’s Insurance System: Living on Borrowed Time?

Jun 3 2013 // Mother Nature has been kind to Florida’s coastline lately with a record run of seven years without a hurricane making landfall, allowing property insurers time to re-stock their depleted coffers. As a result, before...

Near National P/C Carriers Identified for 2013

Jun 3 2013 // The original criteria and objective definition for the Near Nationals was established in the Feb. 12, 2007, issue of Insurance Journal. The Demotech Company Classification System categorizes insurers into one of 11...

How Women Can Rise to Executive Level in P/C Insurance Industry

May 31 2013 // Networking is the single biggest thing women can do to facilitate their rise up the corporate ladder in the property/casualty insurance industry, according to four women who have done just that. And being a sponsor is one...

After Years of Increases, Florida Property Insurance Rates May Be Stabilizing

May 29 2013 // It’s been nearly eight years since Hurricane Wilma raked the southern end of Florida and caused billions in damages, the last of eight hurricanes to hit the state in 2004 and 2005. Yet even as the state has been...

Insurers and Climate Change: The Truth is More Complicated than the Sound Bytes

May 24 2013 // As an insurance guy who has been on both sides of the climate change debate (I’ve worked for organizations full of climate change skeptics and now head one that believes it’s an important public policy issue)...

S&P Assesses Insurance Industry and Country Risk Shaping Insurance Markets

May 23 2013 // A report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services notes that “for the two main insurance sectors, life and property/casualty (P/C), overall industry and country risks are, on average, much lower in developed...

TRIA Debate Heats Up with Charge ‘Nervous Nelly’ P/C Insurers Enjoy $7B ‘Subsidy’

May 20 2013 // A consumer advocacy group says the property/casualty insurance industry has been getting a sweet deal worth about $7 billion as a result of the federal government’s program to help pay terrorism insurance claims...

Registration Open for the 2013 Virtual Insurance Tradeshow

May 15 2013 // Fairfield, CA, 05/15/13 – Now in its third year, the 2013 Virtual Insurance Marketplace, brought to the insurance industry by Direct Connection Advertising & Marketing, LLC, an agency specializing in insurance...