Latest Trends Headlines

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

Allianz Net Falls on WTC Attacks, Forecasts Gains in 2002

Feb 8 2002 // German insurance giant Allianz AG confirmed the adverse affects of last September’s attacks on the World Trade Center with the announcement that preliminary figures indicated a net operating profit for 2001 of around...

OneBeacon Enters Professional Liability Insurance Market

Feb 7 2002 // OneBeacon Insurance Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., announced its entrance into the Directors and Officers Liability and Professional Liability insurance markets under the name...

CDI Releases New Auto Premium Comparison Survey

Feb 7 2002 // The California Department of Insurance (CDI) announced the latest edition of the Automobile Insurance Premium Comparison Survey on its web site at www.insurance.ca.gov. The new Automobile Insurance Premium Comparison...

Claims Expected to Pile up Like Snowdrifts in Midwest

Feb 6 2002 // Tens of thousands of residents of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are still without power after ice storms crippled those states last week, and many thousands of residents are expected to begin filing claims for damage to...

Chinese Insurance Sector Reports 32.2% Growth

Feb 5 2002 // Judging from a report by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, the insurance market in the People’s Republic is thriving with total income for 2001 of 210.94 billion yuan ($25.5 billion), a 32.2 percent increase...

S&P Revises Outlook on Samsung to Positive

Jan 31 2002 // Standard & Poor’s announced that it has revised the outlook on its single-‘A’ long-term local currency credit rating on South Korea’s Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co. Ltd. to positive...

SAFECO Increases Rates for 2002

Jan 31 2002 // Seattle-based SAFECO Corp. has announced its plans to increase rates for its personal and commercial auto insurance policies in 2002. According to Associated Press, SAFECO president Mike McGavick stated the company’s...

Rising Prices Hit Commercial Property Market

Jan 28 2002 // Dire predictions have been floating around since September 11 regarding the availability and pricing of insurance coverage for commercial property, largely due to the issues surrounding terrorist exclusions and whopping...

20 Arrested as NY Auto Fraud Unit Breaks Up Another Insurance Scam

Jan 25 2002 // Six weeks after arresting 112 persons on various charges of insurance fraud, (See IJ Website Dec. 6) New York’s Auto Insurance Fraud Unit has struck again with the arrest of 20 persons accused of being part of...

Port Authority Revenues Stable Despite 300% Rise in Premiums

Jan 25 2002 // The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported $2.7 billion in gross operating revenues for 2001, slightly more than last year, despite a 300 percent increase in its insurance premiums from around $4 million to $16...

U.K.’s Cox Increases WTC Loss Estimates

Jan 24 2002 // Cox Insurance, a leading Lloyd’s underwriter and retail insurer, announced that additional claims from the WTC disaster have raised its loss estimates from £67 million ($96.5 million) to between £85...

Survey Ranks over Half of All State Tort Systems as Bad for Business

Jan 24 2002 // A survey released this week by the United States Chamber of Commerce assessing the fairness of liability systems for all 50 states found that 57 percent of corporate general counsels and senior litigators rank...

S&P Sees Stable Belgian Insurance Market in 2002

Jan 22 2002 // Standard & Poor’s has issued a report on the Belgian insurance market which concludes that the basic outlook for the year 2002 is stable, and that the majority of Belgian insurers’ financial strength...

Credit Scoring May Come Up in Olympics-Disrupted Utah 2002 Legislative Session

Jan 21 2002 // According to the National Association of Independent Insurers (NAII), although the credit-scoring issue is lurking in the background, few bills of major insurer interest are definitely set yet for the Utah legislative...

Conning and Co. Reports P/C Insurer Reserves Inadequate to Cover Rising Cost of Claims

Jan 18 2002 // According to a Business Wire report, insurers will have to strengthen their loss reserves in order to be able to meet future claims, as stated in a new Conning & Company study. Though property-casualty rates have been...

Commercial Insurance Market Index Documents Signs of Market Distress

Jan 17 2002 // According to PR Newswire, the insurance industry is showing the first signs of distress following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with major commercial property/casualty premiums uniformly on the upswing and confusion in...

P/C Trends Gain Momentum after U.S. Attacks

Jan 16 2002 // According to A.M. Best Co., the unprecedented events of Sept. 11 have forever changed the way the insurance industry defines risk as both property and liability lines have been exposed to catastrophic risks that cannot be...

Report Reinsurance Rate Rise Reduced

Jan 14 2002 // A recent survey by Reuters News Service indicates that the expected strong surge in reinsurance premiums for property catastrophe coverage may be a good deal less than originally anticipated. Although the market remains...

To Sell or Not to Sell: Bank-Owned Insurance Agencies My Be Wave of the Future

Jan 14 2002 // As far back as anyone now in the insurance business can remember, agents were fighting against allowing banks to sell insurance. That changed in 1996 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that national banks selling...

AGENT WEBSITE SURVEY

Jan 14 2002 // The Great American Insurance Group established access on its website to a survey developed by The ACORD User Groups Information Exchange (AUGIE). AUGIE announced in November 2001 that it had been working with insurance...