Latest Market Headlines

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

Texas governor to address agents at management seminar

Jan 22 2006 // Texas Gov. Rick Perry will deliver a special luncheon address at the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas’ 43rd Annual Joe Vincent Management Seminar. Nearly 400 of the state’s most progressive and influential...

Emerging environmental risks pose problems for underwriters

Jan 22 2006 // Anticipating and assessing risk, along with defining and assigning value to units of exposure, are basic components of an insurance underwriter’s job. Challenging as such tasks are when examining well-known...

Earlybird Forecast

Jan 22 2006 // Fortunately for insurers, 2006 will likely feature far fewer screaming headlines announcing investigations into various insurance industry practices such as broker compensation and finite reinsurance. Each year the...

News Currents

Jan 22 2006 // Regulatory modernization tops industry’s legislative agenda for 2006 With the extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, passage of federal class action and crop insurance reform, enactment of asbestos reform in...

Former FEMA Director Witt Advocates Need for National CAT Fund

Jan 19 2006 // James Lee Witt, former FEMA director and co-chair of ProtectingAmerica.org, told the members of the Task Force on Long-Term Solutions for Florida’s Hurricane Insurance Market on Thursday that there is an urgent need...

Swiss Re Revisits the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

Jan 18 2006 // Swiss Re has released “A shake in insurance history — The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake,” to mark the centennial of the catastrophe. The reinsurer notes that it was “an event that altered the course...

Severe Avian Flu Pandemic Could Generate $133 Billion in New Claims, I.I.I. Says

Jan 17 2006 // A moderate avian flu outbreak similar to the 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics could significantly impact the life insurance industry, generating $31 billion in additional death claims, according to a new analysis by the...

W.Va. Governor Supports Pilot Health Care Program

Jan 16 2006 // A pilot program to bring affordable and preventable health care to West Virginians, based on a Wheeling doctor’s idea, has been announced by Gove Joe Manchin. According to the Wheeling News-Register the Preventive...

Lloyd’s Urges U.S. to End Foreign Insurers’ Trade Barriers

Jan 11 2006 // Barriers to trade must be removed to permit foreign reinsurers to lend more support in the event of another mega-disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, Lloyd’s chairman Lord Levene told New York business...

Guy Carpenter Issues Report on U.S. Reinsurance Renewals

Jan 9 2006 // Global risk and reinsurance specialist Guy Carpenter & Company, a unit of the Marsh & McLennan Companies, has published “U.S. Reinsurance Renewals at January 1, 2006,” its “annual review of...

R&M Analysis of Effects of FSA Regulation on UK Insurance Industry

Jan 9 2006 // Dublin-based consultants Research and Markets announced the addition of “UK Commercial Insurance Distribution 2005” to their offering. The new publication analyzes changes following the introduction of the new...

S&P Maintains Stable Outlook on Italian Insurance Industry

Jan 9 2006 // In a recently issued study “Insurance Industry Risk Analysis: Italy (Republic of),” Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said it is maintaining its stable outlook on the Italian insurance industry....

Shift in S. Fla. ‘Line of Demarcation’ Could Reduce Homeowners Rates

Jan 9 2006 // South Florida homeowners with properties located in a strip of land east of I-95 could have their policies reduced if a proposal is implemented to shift the line of demarcation as far east as U.S. Highway 1, or even A1A,...

R&M Study of Irish Insurance Market

Jan 6 2006 // Research and Markets has announced the addition of Ireland Insurance 2005 to their offering. “Our Ireland Insurance 2005 report provides 2004 year-end market data, with 2005 estimates and five-year forecasts,”...

EGI Financial Motors Into Ontario Motorcycle Insurance Market

Jan 6 2006 // Toronto-based EGI Financial Holdings Inc. reported that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Echelon General Insurance Company, is entering the Ontario motorcycle insurance market with a $5 million brokerage agreement with Riders...

Gov. Perry to Headline IIAT’s Joe Vincent Management Seminar

Jan 5 2006 // Texas Gov. Rick Perry will deliver a special luncheon address to nearly 400 of the state’s most progressive and influential independent insurance agency principals and managers when they gather for the Independent...

Analysts Predict Faster P/C Premium Growth, Underwriting Profit in 2006

Jan 5 2006 // Record catastrophe losses will weigh heavily on 2005’s underwriting results, pushing what would have been the industry’s largest underwriting profit ever into a loss situation, according to the Insurance...

RMS: New TRIA Structure Shifts Risk Burden to Insurance Industry

Jan 4 2006 // Newark, Calif.-based Risk Management Solutions (RMS) recently assessed the risk of terrorism and quantified how the terms of the December 2005 renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) would shift the relative...

Agents, Brokers, Carriers: Insurance Outlook Good for 2006

Jan 2 2006 // With the insurance industry surviving a year filled with catastrophe losses and the challenge of reauthorizing the terrorism reinsurance backstop legislation, the prospects still seem bright for 2006 according to agents,...

Which cars are safest? Insurance industry picks

Jan 2 2006 // Ten 2006 passenger cars won praise from the insurance industry for offering protection to passengers in front, side and rear crashes. Winners of the institute’s gold award included the Ford 500 and Mercury Montego...