Articles by Susanne Sclafane

Sclafane is Executive Editor of Carrier Management, a publication of Wells Media Group serving property/casualty insurance carrier executives. She is a media professional with deep background in the P/C insurance industry including 25 years as editor and reporter for trade magazines, online news services, digital journals. Her prior experience includes 14 years as a casualty actuary.

Property-Catastrophe Reinsurance Rates Will Stop Dropping Post Wildfires: Execs

RenaissanceRe expects to incur about $750 million in losses from the January 2025 California wildfires—and anticipates that industrywide impacts should halt the drop in property-catastrophe reinsurance prices observed at 1/1. Kevin O’Donnell, president and chief executive officer, referencing an industrywide …

How Competitive Is E&S Property? Exec Views Vary

E&S property insurance market conditions were a recurring talking point on two recent earnings conference calls, but the leaders of specialty insurers offering commentary were not perfectly in lockstep in their assessments of the competitive landscape. At RLI Corp., property …

Everest Group Boosts Casualty Loss Reserves $1.7 Billion

Everest Group preannounced full-year 2024 earnings yesterday, disclosing about a 45% drop in net income attributable to a $1.7 billion boost in its casualty insurance reserves. The company, which writes more than twice as much reinsurance premium as insurance premium, …

Smoke, Coverage Issues Cloud Wildfire Forecast: $35-$45B Losses Insured

CoreLogic announced a preliminary range of insured losses for the Eaton and Palisades Fires in Los Angeles of $35 billion to $45 billion, but there are a lot of factors that could change the numbers. “We don’t know,” Tom Larsen, …

Too High? Too Low? BMS Analyzes Early Wildfire Insured Loss Estimates

Industry analysts’ early estimates of insurance industry losses for the January 2025 California wildfires have already grown from $8 billion to $40 billion-plus—with many noting that it’s too early for precision in the numbers. In short, whether they were calculated …

When EVs Take Off: AM Best Reviews Impact on China Motor Insurance

Premiums for policies covering new energy vehicles in China have soared to $13.8 billion—a six-fold jump from the level recorded five years earlier, AM Best said in a special report. According to the report, “China’s New Energy Vehicle Boom Transforms …

Moody’s Global P/C Outlook Now Stable Despite Past-Peak Commercial Pricing

Moody’s Ratings changed the sector outlook for the global property/casualty insurance industry to stable from negative last month, pointing to personal lines price hikes in the U.S. and UK as a reason for the upgrade. As for commercial P/C insurance, …

Quantifying Social Inflation: How Swiss Re Developed an Index

Swiss Re Institute (SRI) made a significant contribution to the literature on social inflation and its impacts on insurers, reinsurers and their customers with the calculation of a new measure—a social inflation index. (Related article: US Nuclear Verdicts Break Records …

Unite and Conquer: How the Insurance Industry Can Deflate Social Inflation

At one of the early meetings of American Legal Connections, Rich Henderson, a senior vice president for reinsurer TransRe, bumped into a concerned client from a hospital insurance company who brought his team members to the event. The insurer was …

Swiss Re Execs Sleeping Well After $2.4 Billion Q3 Reserve Boost

While a $2.4 billion boost in loss reserves for the third-quarter will help Swiss Re’s executives sleep better on a bigger cushion, across the industry, worsening trends in U.S. liability loss costs aren’t letting up, they said yesterday. In fact, …