Latest Property Casualty Headlines

S&P Lowers Ratings on American National’s Operating Companies

Oct 25 2010 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has lowered its counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on the core operating companies of the American National Insurance Co. group (ANICO) to ‘A+’ from...

P/C Executives Encouraged to Be Optimistic Amid America’s Challenges

Oct 25 2010 // An executive of a national insurance company trade group told insurance CEOs and senior executives that America faces a struggle between two competing visions for the future – a choice between a free market system...

University Study of P/C Insurers Finds Bad CEOs Can Wreck Companies

Oct 18 2010 // When companies go out of business, their leaders often blame something other than their own performance for the failure. Lehman Bros.’s CEO Richard Fuld said his compensation package had nothing to do with his...

People

Oct 18 2010 // Texas-based Roach Howard Smith & Barton (RHSB) announced that Jan Holcombe joined the company as vice president of personal client services. Holcombe brings more than 20 years of experience as an insurance counseling...

People

Oct 18 2010 // The Hartford appointed Lisa Morgan senior vice president of its middle market commercial insurance business. She will lead The Hartford’s $2 billion middle market commercial insurance unit that provides the...

Commercial Lines Leaders

Oct 18 2010 // About the Commercial Lines Leaders: The 2010 Commercial Lines Leaders in this special feature are taken from Insurance Journal’s Top 100 Property/Casualty Indepdendent Agencies as reported in August. This list...

Foreign Insurers Need Adaptability to Share in Gulf Market

Oct 7 2010 // International insurers seeking a bigger share of the potentially lucrative Gulf market need to adapt quickly to regulatory changes and tap into growth areas like Islamic finance or risk being muscled out of...

S&P Raises AFG’s Subsidiaries Ratings to ‘A+’; Outlook Stable

Oct 7 2010 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has raised its counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on American Financial Group’s (AFG) core insurance subsidiaries to ‘A+’ from...

MainSource Financial Sells P&C, Health Units to Encore Insurance

Oct 4 2010 // Greensburg, Ind.-based MainSource Financial Group announced it sold the property and casualty and health insurance book of businesses related to its insurance subsidiary, MainSource Insurance (MSI), to Encore Insurance...

A Wonderful Life

Oct 4 2010 // McQueary Henry Bowles Troy Soars High With Faith, Texas Values and the Ultimate Angel Investor If a creative insurance cinematographer were to capture the story of McQueary Henry Bowles Troy LLP, it might appear to be a...

Top 25 Carriers’ Second Quarter Results Show Improvement in 2010 Versus Second Quarter 2009

Oct 4 2010 // Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning.” In a market that continues to be described as soft, the Top 25...

Liberty Mutual Blames Market for IPO Delay; Analysts Cite High Valuation

Sep 29 2010 // Liberty Mutual Agency Corp. postponed indefinitely its planned initial public offering, quashing hopes that the planned $1.2 billion flotation could give a needed jolt to the U.S. IPO market. The property and casualty...

Surplus Lines Premiums Fall, Again, But Brokers Remain Optimistic

Sep 28 2010 // The surplus lines industry continues to experience a decline in direct premiums written (DPW). For a third consecutive year in 2009, the surplus lines industry’s DPW fell 4.1 percent, an improvement over 2008 where...

America’s Best Independent Agencies to Work For

Sep 20 2010 // Salaries and Benefits Lead but Quality of People and Relationships Win Votes, Too The results are in from the 2010 Best Independent Insurance Agency to Work For survey by Insurance Journal. The owners of the Best Agencies...

People

Sep 20 2010 // Philadelphia Insurance Cos. promoted Christopher J. Maguire and Sean S. Sweeney to co-presidents. Maguire joined Philadelphia Insurance Companies in 1987 and has managed underwriting operations and production. In his most...

Fitch Revises U.S. P/C Industry Outlook to Stable

Sep 20 2010 // Fitch has revised its sector outlook on the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry to stable from negative for both the commercial lines and personal lines sectors. The ratings agency says that a stable outlook for the...

Sep 20 2010 // U.S. P/C Reinsurers’ Premiums Decrease $12.8B in First Half of 2010 A group of 19 U.S.-based property/casualty reinsurers wrote $12.3 billion of net premiums during the six-months ended June 30, 2010, a decrease from...

University Study of P/C Insurers Finds Bad CEOs Can Wreck Companies

Sep 20 2010 // When companies go out of business, their leaders often blame something other than their own performance for the failure. Lehman Bros.’s CEO Richard Fuld said his compensation package had nothing to do with his...

P/C Insurers Post First Half Profit Despite Underwriting Losses

Sep 16 2010 // Private U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes rose to $16.5 billion in first-half 2010 from $6 billion in first-half 2009, with insurers’ overall profitability as measured by their annualized...

Fitch Revises U.S. P/C Industry Outlook to Stable

Sep 8 2010 // Fitch has revised its sector outlook on the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry to stable from negative for both the commercial lines and personal lines sectors. The ratings agency says that a stable outlook for the...