Latest Trends Headlines
All the headlines from our Trends Topic Page, ordered by recency.
S&P Affirms Ratings for AIG with Negative Outlook
May 18 2018 // S&P Global Ratings has affirmed its ‘A+’ insurer financial strength rating and ‘BBB+’ long- and ‘A-2’ short-term issuer credit ratings on American International Group Inc. (AIG), and...
Fitch Sees Small Profit But Still Negative on U.S. Commercial Lines Outlook
May 18 2018 // After a tumultuous 2017, the U.S. commercial lines market should eke out a small underwriting profit in 2018 assuming catastrophe losses return to more historical norms, Fitch Ratings said in a new report. Still, Fitch is...
Costs for Some Speeding Tickets Going Down in Oklahoma
May 17 2018 // A new law going into effect in Oklahoma will cut the cost of a basic speeding ticket by more than half. The law, which goes into effect in early August and expires in November 2020, will reduce the cost of tickets issued...
A.M. Best Assigns Stable Outlook to Germany’s Non-Life Insurance Sector
May 17 2018 // A.M. Best has a stable outlook on the German non-life insurance sector as Germany’s robust economy continues to drive growth. According to the ratings agency, the country’s technical profitability is solid and...
Regulatory Climate Rated Top Emerging Risk in Latin America
May 17 2018 // While cyberattacks ranked as the most significant emerging risk for organizations around the world, the regulatory environment in Latin America ranked highest for risk professionals in that region according to the newly...
A.M. Best: Outlooks Revised to Positive for Benchmark Insurance
May 16 2018 // A.M. Best has revised the outlooks to positive from stable and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of “a-” of Benchmark Insurance Co. (Benchmark) in...
Reagan Survey Shows 5.6% Organic Growth by Agencies in Q1
May 16 2018 // Insurance agencies and brokerage firms recorded the second consecutive quarter of accelerating growth, and their outlook for the remainder of 2018 continues to be optimistic, according to a new industry survey of...
Insurance Department: Competition Increases in Louisiana Homeowners Market
May 15 2018 // The Louisiana Department of Insurance says the state’s homeowners insurance market is much more competitive these days than it was a decade ago. The LDI reported in its 2018 Agency Snapshot that in 2017, the...
Number of Lawyers in U.S. Grew 15% in Past Decade
May 14 2018 // The nationwide population of lawyers is up to 1,338,678 licensed, active attorneys, which represents a 0.2 percent increase since last year and a 15.2 percent rise over the past decade, according to data from the American...
A.M. Best Revises Credit Rating Outlook of Builders Mutual Companies of North Carolina
May 14 2018 // A.M. Best has revised the outlook to positive from stable for the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A (Excellent) and Long-Term ICR of “a” of...
How Insurer Execs, Workers View Artificial Intelligence and Future Work
May 11 2018 // Insurers can seize major growth opportunities by redesigning work, bringing in new talent, and pivoting their existing workforces to work with artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new repot by Accenture. The...
White House Hosts Meeting on Future of Artificial Intelligence
May 10 2018 // The White House plans to convene a meeting on Thursday on the future of artificial intelligence in U.S. industry with major companies including Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Oracle Corp....
Paid Workers’ Comp Claims in Minnesota Drop by Half Over 2 Decades
May 9 2018 // A recent report shows the number of paid workers’ compensation claims in Minnesota fell 54 percent relative to the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees from 1996 to 2016. The 2016 Minnesota Workers’...
Drugs in Workforce at Highest in Decade But Opiates Decline: Quest Diagnostics
May 9 2018 // Drug use by the American workforce remains at its highest rate in more than a decade, driven by increases in cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. However, prescription opiate positivity rates have declined. Nationally,...
CoreLogic® Offers Unique Perspective to HayWired Earthquake Scenario in Conjunction with the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
May 7 2018 // This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic. Situated along the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire,” California is in the middle of earthquake country, and planning for the next...
P/C Direct Premium Written Up 4.7 Percent in 2017
May 7 2018 // Direct premium written (DPW) for property/casualty insurance companies continues to increase, albeit gradually. At year-end 2016, more than $607 billion of DPW was reported. For 2017, total DPW for all P/C insurers...
How Agencies Grow Today: Channel Harvest Survey
May 7 2018 // When it comes to business growth, agents have their eyes on the same prize but different ideas about how to secure it. That’s one of the key findings of “Agent Voices 2018,” a soon-to-be-released report...
North Carolina Homeowners Insurers Agree to 4.8% Rate Increase
May 7 2018 // The North Carolina Department of Insurance has reached a settlement with the North Carolina Rate Bureau to increase homeowners insurance rates statewide by an average of 4.8 percent. The agreement between the two parties...
With Flood Risk Rising, Coastal Real Estate Looks a Lot Like a Junk Bond: Viewpoint
May 4 2018 // A friend of mine who is a bit of a climate-change skeptic once challenged me with this question: If climate change is such a pressing danger, why haven’t coastal real estate prices crashed? It’s a fair...
Insurer Sees Growth in Insurance Market for Telemedicine Providers
May 4 2018 // As the U.S. market for telemedicine continues to expand, so does demand for insurance coverage for these providers, according to Beazley, which launched its product last summer. The U.S. is the largest and most mature...
