Latest Trends Headlines
All the headlines from our Trends Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Executives See Moderate P/C Insurance Growth in 2008
Jan 14 2008 // Property casualty insurance insiders predicted 2008 will be a year of marginal growth as continued pricing competition will keep premiums low and profits lower, although that could quickly worsen if a natural catastrophe...
Survey: Prices Continue to Drop for Commercial Lines Market
Jan 14 2008 // Commercial lines insurance premiums continued to tumble during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the RIMS Benchmark Survey, an industry survey of policy renewal prices as reported by corporate risk managers. Despite...
FBI Study: Violent, Property Crime Rates Decline
Jan 13 2008 // Crime rates dropped for the first time in two years, according to a newly released report of the most recent data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nationwide, violent crime fell 1.8 percent and property...
Well-financed Buyers Lead Today’s Agency Value Trends
Jan 13 2008 // Fair market value can be defined as the price that a willing buyer and a willing seller agree on for the price of a business. Naturally, there is a lot of room for negotiation based on the circumstances. However, fair...
Dramatic Changes in State Building Trends Could Prompt Rise in Losses
Jan 13 2008 // As the financial and housing markets continue to work their way through the fallout of the mortgage lending meltdown, the construction sector faces its share of woes. But as is typically the case, specific conditions —...
Future of Bond Insurance at Risk
Jan 13 2008 // The biggest casualty of the crisis surrounding bond insurers may well be the insurers themselves. Issuers and bond buyers alike may find it easier now to dispense with insurance, experts say, given that the finances of...
Momentum Strong for Broker M&As in October, November
Jan 13 2008 // Stock Prices: Aon Corp. (NYSE:AOC) continued to outperform the sector, up a remarkable 43.1 percent year-to-date. The company reported third quarter 2007 results at the end of October. Net income increased 92 percent to...
Lloyd’s GCube Promotes Growth in Renewable Energy Sector
Jan 11 2008 // “GCube, the insurance entity spun out of Lloyd’s managing general agency WindPro, has opened its doors to business on both sides of the Atlantic,” notes a bulletin on the Lloyd’s web site...
Kan. Report: Traffic Deaths Hit 15-year Low
Jan 11 2008 // State officials say the traffic death count in Kansas has hit a 15-year low. The Kansas Department of Transportation says 404 people died in Kansas crashes in 2007, down 13 percent from 468 fatalities in 2006. KDOT traffic...
Best Revises Stoneheath, FLAC Outlooks to Negative on SCA/XL Concerns
Jan 10 2008 // A.M. Best Co. has revised the rating outlook to negative from stable for the debt rating of “bbb” on $350 million non-cumulative perpetual preferred securities (issuer preferred securities) issued by Stoneheath...
FDNY: Average Response Time Decrease in 2007
Jan 8 2008 // The New York fire department’s average response time decreased last year for the second consecutive year even as the number calls increased slightly, the fire commissioner announced Sunday. The citywide average...
Fla. Report: Workers’ Comp Rates Reduced 5 Times in 5 Years
Jan 8 2008 // On New Year’s Eve, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation released its annual report on the state of the market for workers’ compensation insurance to the Florida Legislature. The report analyzes the...
S&P: TRIPRA’s Passage Keeps U.S. Commercial Lines Outlook Stable
Jan 8 2008 // On Dec. 26, 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (TRIPRA), thereby retaining the federal backstop for terrorism risk through Dec. 31, 2014. The...
S&P Revises Swett & Crawford’s Rating Outlook to Negative
Jan 7 2008 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has revised its outlook on HMSC Corp., the intermediate holding company of Swett & Crawford Group Inc., to negative from stable, while also affirming its ‘B’...
S&P Affirms Arrowhead General Ratings; Lowers Outlook to Negative
Jan 7 2008 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has revised its outlook on San Diego, Calif.-based Arrowhead General Insurance Agency Inc. to negative from stable. At the same time S&P affirmed its ‘B’...
Philly Fire Deaths Down in 2007
Jan 3 2008 // Fewer people dead, injured in fires in Philadelphia in 2006 The number of people who died in fires in Philadelphia was down last year. The Philadelphia Fire Department has released the city’s fire statistics for...
Survey: Teens Want Friends to be Safer on Roads
Dec 31 2007 // With motor vehicle accidents claiming between 5,000 and 6,000 teen lives each year, a new survey commissioned by Allstate Insurance reveals that many teens do not take personal responsibility for safe driving and continue...
Munich Re 2007 Nat Cat Report Warns of ‘Rising Trend’
Dec 28 2007 // Munich Re’s loss figures for 2007 from natural catastrophes concludes that “despite the general absence of extreme events, overall economic losses had reached $75 billion by the end of December – an...
Conn. Private Coastal Insurance Market Works, Say Commissioner and Insurers
Dec 27 2007 // Acknowledging the ongoing concern over coastal property insurance in his state, Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan maintained that the state’s coastal property insurance market is in pretty good shape...
Best: ‘Unauthorized’ Reinsurance Increasing P/C Market Share
Dec 27 2007 // A.M. Best Co. has published a special report which examines the increasing use of “unauthorized reinsurance” in the U.S. P/C insurance industry. The report also indicates, however, that an “expensive...
