Risk & Insurance articles from February 2008

Risk & Insurance archives from February 2008

'Round and 'round.
February 1, 2008... Four years ago, when prices in many lines were higher than they are today, insurance company CEOs boasted that a better ability to disperse risk thanks to finer data mining and more accurate forecasting would prevent shareholders and customers...

U.S. cat losses: $6.5 b.(NEWS & NOTES)
February 1, 2008... Catastrophes cost U.S. property/ casualty insurers an estimated $6.5 billion in 2007, according to Insurance Services Office Inc.'s Property Claim Services unit. PCS reported that 23 catastrophes--which PCS defines as an event that causes $25...

Global cat losses: $75 b.(NEWS & NOTES)
February 1, 2008... Despite the general absence of extreme catastrophes in 2007, overall economic losses from natural disasters reached $75 billion by the end of December 2007, an increase of 50 percent from $50 billion in 2006, according to Munich Re. The losses...

Ironshore buys E&S Shell.(NEWS & NOTES)
February 1, 2008... Ironshore Holdings Inc., Ironshore Inc.'s U.S. subsidiary, completed the acquisition of TIG Specialty Insurance Co., a U.S.-based excess-and-surplus lines insurance company, Ironshore has announced. The company, to be renamed Ironshore...

New ethics courses.(NEWS & NOTES)
February 1, 2008... The Risk and Insurance Management Society has made available a compliance and business ethics training library, offering more than 50 online courses that cover a range of topics in these areas. The courses--designed by WeComply, a provider of...

Long-term focus is key.(NEWS & NOTES)
February 1, 2008... Despite two years of underwriting profitability, the insurance industry should guard against complacency, according to insurance industry CEOs participating in a panel discussion at the 12th annual Property/Casualty Joint Industry Forum. "You...

Labor gators.(POWER BROKERS)
February 1, 2008... CEOs and presidents fear them. They snap at their heels, rule their nightmares and tear gaping bloody chunks out of their bottom lines. They're the labor gators, the demands made by employees, and let's not kid ourselves--compensation has to be...

Soft-serve insurance markets.(POWER BROKERS)
February 1, 2008... With soft pricing busting out all over, agents and brokers are doing the best they can to cope with the smaller bang for the buck of insurance coverage they now sell compared to a few years ago. Of course, this is nothing new as insurance...

Power broker: what it takes.(POWER BROKERS)
February 1, 2008... What major did the typical Power Broker Award winner earn in college? In graduate studies? Do you even need a college education to become one of the best intermediaries out there? And how about age? Why don't some Power Brokers like to reveal...

Breaking the girl.(COLUMNS)
February 1, 2008... Peter Rousmaniere takes apart the workers' comp and disability issues surrounding the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh. If the topic floats your boat, be sure to visit the premier site on the Web for anything and everything shipbreaking,...

Bright spots in a bleak market.(E&S)
February 1, 2008... The soft market can be tough for carriers, especially excess-and-surplus players. The annual U.S. Surplus Lines Market annual review from NAPSLO, though, sees continued underwriting profits for surplus lines, despite P/C insurance rates that...

A way to quantify ERM's value?(RISK MANAGEMENT)
February 1, 2008... By March 1, 2008, Standard and Poor's Rating Services is expected to decide whether to introduce enterprise risk management into its corporate credit ratings process. Could this be the ultimate catalyst to bring ERM and its long-anticipated...

Non-narcotic painkiller Lidoderm vaults to the top of WC Rx cost, surprising researchers: OxyContin falls to no. 5 as most expensive work comp drug.(UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hillbillies can breathe a little easier. OxyContin, the pharmaceutical painkiller known as "hillbilly heroin" to law enforcement officials because of its popularity as an illegal recreational narcotic for some...

Gallagher Bassett case grinds on: is the company being mean to school children, or being abused by a Catholic diocese?(UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
February 1, 2008... A legal battle between a Roman Catholic diocese in Western Pennsylvania and a third-party administrator headquartered outside of Chicago is entering its fifth year. The argument has ground on to the point that Itasca, Ill.-based Gallagher...

Consulting on healthcare: employees would like companies to provide more healthcare information, according to a recent survey, which also found significant attitude differences among various demographic groups related to treatment options, cost oversight and medical inquiries.(UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Employers need to take a more active role in providing healthcare-related information to workers, according to a recent survey by the Washington, D.C.-based National Business Group on Health. The survey,...

Few carriers expected to suffer short term from subprime mortgage mess: longer-term, however, the subprime risk "contagion" could infect carriers with heavy exposure to mortgage-backed securities, analysts warn.(UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
February 1, 2008... The chaos in the subprime mortgage marketplace is expected to affect few property/casualty insurers in the short term, a new report found, but the next 18 to 24 months could be rough, particularly for life and health carries with too much...

Worth repeating.(UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
February 1, 2008... "At the end of the day, I've got to do my job." Jennifer Bierbaum Thorpe, vice president, Aon, on succeeding without the need for nepotism "I probably expected more of myself." Bob Lane Jr., senior vice president, Beecher Carlson,...

Shipbreaking in Mumbai.(WORKER'S COMP)
February 1, 2008... Shipbreaking is a common developing-world way of describing the dismantling of ships. To avoid work-safety and environmental regulations in the developed world, many owners sell their old ocean going vessels to recycling companies in India and...

2 wrongs a right do not make.(ROGER ON RISK)
February 1, 2008... Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes, said something along these lines: It takes only the slightest shift of perception for everything to start looking completely different, and for circumstances to then start fitting one's...

John Cosgrove had it right.(BROKERAGE)
February 1, 2008... My mentor John Cosgrove, the former editor of National Underwriter, was until the day he died a few years back at age 94, at least to the few of us like myself still around to remember, the acknowledged dean of American insurance journalists....

Don't shoot the messenger.(RISK MANAGEMENT)
February 1, 2008... Many disasters are foreseen. Sometime after the dust has settled, it is discovered that someone knew that the catastrophe was imminent. If this is the ease, why do foreseen, preventable disasters occur? Take the two space shuttle disasters. On...

A hellhole of my 'yout'.(THE LAW)
February 1, 2008... You might remember the 1992 movie My Cousin Vinny. The wonderfully gifted actor Joe Pesei plays Vinny Gambini, a recent law school graduate from Brooklyn who ends up in a hostile Alabama courtroom defending his teenage nephew and a buddy in a...

Power Brokers 2008: the 'total package': who are this year's Power Brokers, and what makes them tick? A market hard or soft, when it comes to serving commercial insurance customers, service still rules the day.(Cover story)
February 1, 2008... Summary * Risk executives say service still makes all the difference between the brokers they merely like and the brokers they love, and those with whom they simply don't want to do business. * Soft markets are a double-edged sword:...

Soured on service: though many buyers were happy with their individual brokers last year, others weren't shy about blurting out brokers' shortcomings.(POWER BROKERS: SERVICE)
February 1, 2008... Summary * Brokerage executives we talked to agree there's an ongoing problem with customer service, and that brokers need to bring their definition of it into the modern era. * High turnover in the employment ranks is something almost...

Family renewals: the brokerage business is fertile soil for growing family trees--if anything because all producers are measured equally no matter what last name they bear.(POWER BROKERS: FAMILY)
February 1, 2008... Summary * There's nothing wrong with the ethos of "benevolent nepotism," in the eyes of J. Patrick Gallagher. * For Lockton, nurturing talent is as much about adopting new members into the company's one big family tree as it is growing...

The unstoppables: first-time standouts among this year's Power Broker selections share the following traits: leadership, ambition, knowledge, service and, of course, youth.(POWER BROKERS: ROOKIES)
February 1, 2008... BY RISK & INSURANCE STAFF Summary * Successful young commercial insurance brokers share the following traits: Youth, passion and ambition. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There are few things more exciting than watching a...

Talent, technology, action! DeWitt Stern Group has taken a cache of entertainment business talent wrested away from Marsh and Aon and run with it.(POWER BROKERS 2008)
February 1, 2008... Summary * The Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and a piece of Time Warner Inc.'s film business are now all in the fold of broker DeWitt Stern. * A focus on a paperless workplace is one of DeWitt...

Power brokers: automotive.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Marshann G. Varley Senior Vice President Marsh Los Angeles Marshann Varley's fans in the automotive risk management world are many and varied. Supporters describe her as an innovator and an...

Power brokers: transportation.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Al Howze Director of Broking Aon Little Rock, Ark. It's no secret that some of the best brokers are former risk managers and Al Howze is no exception. He's been at Aon for six years, and before...

Power brokers: aviation-aerospace.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anna Adams Managing Director Aon Chicago This managing director for Aon was able to take a client in 2007 somewhere they had never been before: into an airspace where more than four dozen...

Power brokers: construction.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alejandra Evans Senior Vice President Wachovia Insurance Services Washington, D.C. Over the past two years, Alejandra Evans has helped to develop the Washington D.C. office of Wachovia Insurance...

Power brokers: chemicals.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Monica Brecka Director, Excess Casualty Brokerage Aon Longboat Key, Fla. Instead of asking, "What have you clone for me lately?," Monica Brecka's clients ask rhetorically, "What has she not done?"...

Power brokers: education.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anne Mulholland Director, Higher Education Alliance Aon Chicago Last year, a major research university in the Midwest had a serious headache. Its insurance had to cover its parent medical...

Power brokers: energy.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] William Burke Managing Director Aon Houston An old adage speaks of the calm before the storm, but oil and gas exploration and production companies are enjoying a calm after the storms. The end of...

Power brokers: entertainment-media.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Joe Addison CEO Aon Atlanta At the ripe young age of 40, Joe Addison last year was named CEO of Aon Entertainment Group. In his new role, Atlanta-based Addison handles all his previous...

Power brokers: entertainment-sports.(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kathryn Dorton Senior Vice President Marsh Denver Marsh's Kathryn Dorton is helping a Los Angeles-area TV production company get off the ground. And, although Dorton still maintains an L.A....

Power brokers: environmental.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kenneth W. Ayers, ARM Managing Director Aon Nashville, Tenn. It's been a great year for Ken Ayers. Among his biggest accomplishments is cracking the account of one of the world's largest retailers....

Power brokers: financial institutions.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Brian Wanat Managing Director Aon New York Financial institutions have been hit hard by losses on subprime loans and the problems are not over yet. Senior executives have lost their jobs over the...

Power brokers: fine art.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sandra Berlin Vice President Fine Art, Jewelry & Specie Willis Chicago Willis fine-art broker Sandra Berlin is credited with combining the trade skills of a top-flight broker with a broader...

Power brokers: gaming.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Calvin Foster, ARM Chief Operating Officer Beecher Carlson Gulfport, Miss. Hurricane Katrina's impact was still all too apparent in 2007, but the Sawyer Foster Agency, a Beecher company, was there...

Power brokers: healthcare.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Andrew Pickle Senior Vice President Marsh Atlanta Although there was obvious discord between Marsh's former CEO and some board members this year, Marsh's brokers continue to gamely slug it out on...

Power brokers: hospitality.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Donna Pfluger-Murray Managing Director Aon New York Donna Pfluger-Murray is part of the Aon team servicing one of the biggest names in hotels. Her role is as consultant for insurance requirements...

Power brokers: long-term healthcare.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Audrey Greening Senior Vice President Aon Washington, D.C. Audrey Greening brings a varied and long history into play in servicing her long-term healthcare clients. She began her career in 1986 as...

Power brokers: marine.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mark Bernstein Vice President Willis New York 2007 was a banner year for Mark Bernstein, known for his athletic tenacity. Bernstein, a long-distance bicyclist and deep-sea fisherman, grabbed...

Power brokers: pharmaceuticals.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bruce Belzak Managing Director National Life Sciences Practice Leader Marsh Philadelphia It would be close to impossible to not mention Bruce Belzak in the pharmaceutical arena. There's a...

Power brokers: public sector.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dennis O'Hara, ARM Area Executive Vice President Arthur J. Gallagher San Francisco For several years workers' comp was a dirty word in California. Its rates were the highest in the country, so in...

Power brokers: real estate.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alexandra Glickman Area Vice Chairman, Managing Director Worldwide Real Estate Practice Leader Arthur J. Gallagher Glendale, Calif. In real-estate circles, Alexandra Glickman is known as a...

Power brokers: retail-wholesale.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anthony Reynolds Managing Director Marsh Dunwoody, Ga. Sometimes all it takes is one really great idea to make yours a household name. Anthony Reynolds, who deserves a lifetime achievement award...

Power brokers: technology general.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kay Everts, CPCU, CPDM Managing Director Marsh San Jose, Calif. Clients praise Kay Everts for both the experience and enthusiasm that she brings to the table. "She is one of the more senior brokers...

Power brokers: technology-hardware.(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sara Benolken Executive Vice President Willis Austin, Texas When it comes to developing creative solutions for risk management in technology, the computer hardware sector is one where thinking...

Power brokers: technology-software.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Yvonne Cho Vice President Marsh San Francisco In an industry where change is the only constant, brokers need to understand a company's current business but also how that business will change in the...

Power brokers: telecommunications.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] John Connolly Executive Vice President Willis Radnor, Pa. In the telecoms industry, John Connolly is recognized as a leader in the field of directors' and officers' liability. "I couldn't ask...

Power brokers: utilities.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dan McGarvey, ARM, CPCU, ARe, AMIM Managing Director Marsh Greenville, S.C. As nuclear power has made its comeback, new companies to design, build, fuel, and operate plants have come into existence....

Power brokers: workers' comp.
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ann Stephenson, AIM Senior Vice President Marsh Los Angeles If there is one area of workers' compensation that has undergone a huge amount of change in the past few years, it's what's been...

Has competition vanished? Coventry makes big gains in the workers' comp marketplace, but there's still plenty of room for alternative models.(WORKERS' COMP)(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... Summary * Bethesda, Md.-based Coventry Health Care has assembled a big position in the delivery of preferred provider organization (PPO) networks to the workers' compensation marketplace. * Computers are delivering more discretion to...

A brighter outlook: associative filing vendors anchored to Microsoft's Outlook e-mail and database application capture the interest and the business of carriers and intermediaries.(TECHNOLOGY)(Interview)
February 1, 2008... Summary * Associative filing technology is based on association rather than on hierarchies. * The technology has allowed some carders and intermediaries to more accurately track paper and electronic documents. * The technology can...

A test of discipline: excess and surplus lines carriers will have to walk an increasingly fine line in this softer insurance market. But how many of them will have the self-control to do it?(EXCESS/SURPLUS)
February 1, 2008... Summary * E&S carriers remained profitable for the most part in 2007, and should remain so through 2008. * Managing people costs and commission prices is going to be a key focal point for E&S executives this year. * Always niche...

Protection for E-85 producers: without adequate business income insurance, ethanol producers are at risk of significant losses that could put their operations in jeopardy.(PROPERTY-CATASTROPHE)
February 1, 2008... Summary * In the ethanol industry annual income can vary greatly from one year to the next, making it difficult to determine how much business-income insurance limits to purchase. * If a plant is damaged and out of operation, ethanol...

Upcoming events.(Calendar)
February 1, 2008... MARCH 5-7 CICA Conference The Captive Insurance Companies Association will hold its 2008 international conference, covering such topics as an industrywide set of best practices and an update on proposed IRS regulations. This event...

Long live commissions: brokers deserve as much as they can get.(POINT)
February 1, 2008... Commercial insurance brokers deserve everything they can get their hands on--either in the form of fees or in the form of a commission or both. This isn't about greed. It's about incentive, and it helps brokers work harder for their clients....

Favoring fee-based deals: haggling gives brokers a bad name.(COUNTERPOINT)
February 1, 2008... There's nothing wrong with a broker making a lot of money, especially in good times. But brokers have chosen to live and die by the commission system. And in an industry as cyclical as property casualty insurance, that means there are going to...