Latest Market Headlines

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...

Which cars are safest? Insurance industry picks

Jan 1 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...

2005 P/C industry in a word: Resilience

Jan 1 2006 // The property/casualty insurance industry reported a statutory rate of return on average surplus of 9.5 percent through the first nine months of 2005, marginally below the 10.5 percent average return recorded during...

2006: The year when changes take hold

Jan 1 2006 // This coming 2006 New Year seems like it will be the start of a year of big changes for the industry. It is not that the industry will be pulled out by its roots and shaken. Rather, many of the slow and even subtle changes...

Meeting Today’s Challenges and Preparing for Tomorrow’s

Jan 1 2006 // Several pressing public policy issues remain to be debated in the Gulf region and across the country. At the forefront is the question of how we, as a nation, will finance losses from future mega- catastrophes. Weather...

Mississippi Coast faces the storm after the storms: wind or water damage?

Jan 1 2006 // The wind came first. It pried off boards and shot debris into windows at Ron Peresich’s home on Biloxi’s (Mississippi) Back Bay. It tore off rooftops and buckled walls in Bud Ray’s Long Beach...

Jan 1 2006 // Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation, a Boston-based auto insurer, has appointed Matthew H. Cronin as senior marketing representative and Sean P. Farrelly as marketing representative, both in Connecticut. Cronin will...

Ill. Agents,Companies Plan Annual Insurance Industry Legislative Day

Dec 27 2005 // The Professional Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois, in conjunction with the Illinois Insurance Association, Illinois Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Illinois State Association of Health Underwriters...

Independent Agents Feel Hurricane Katrina’s Full Force

Dec 19 2005 // Residents in many areas of the Gulf Coast watched their lives change forever on Aug. 29, 2005. When all was said and done, Hurricane Katrina went in the record books as the country’s worst natural disaster, leaving a...

Meeting Today’s Challenges and Preparing for Tomorrow’s

Dec 19 2005 // Several pressing public policy issues remain to be debated in the Gulf region and across the country. At the forefront is the question of how we, as a nation, will finance losses from future mega-catastrophes. Weather...

Alternative Products Changing P/C Landscape

Dec 19 2005 // “Convergence products,” or alternative insurance products such as catastrophe bonds and finite reinsurance products, will play a critical part in the competitive landscape of the P/C industry in coming years,...