Best's Review articles from July 2004

Best's Review archives from July 2004

A measure of success.(Editor's Prologue)
July 1, 2004... This issue of Best's Review brings you our annual rankings of the top life insurers and the top property/casualty insurers, based on admitted assets for life and net premiums written for property/casualty. One of our cover stories, "Bulking Up"...

In the spotlight *.(Comment)
July 1, 2004... "The insurance cycle is endemic to human nature. Events that can't be predicted tend to influence pricing. Cycles are something that we are going to have to manage our way through." John T. Sinnott Former Chairman, CEO Current Senior...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
July 1, 2004... Ivy Silver, president of Commonwealth Consulting Group, was photographed at the Please Touch Museum, a Philadelphia-based children's museum, for a photo that appeared on page 70 of the June issue of Best's Review. The museum, which is a client...

American Collectors Insurance Inc.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... American Collectors Insurance Inc. named Jill Bookman chief executive officer. On the same day, Melissa Trought was named chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Previously, Bookman served as vice president of sales and...

XL London Market Ltd.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... XL London Market Ltd., an XL Capital Ltd. company, named Dermot O'Donohoe chief executive officer in addition to his role as head of United Kingdom and Ireland operations. On the same day, Paul Drake was named active underwriter of XLLM's...

American International Group Inc.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... American International Group Inc. named Frank H. Douglas senior vice president and casualty actuary. On the same day, Charlene H. Hamrah was named to the position of vice president. She will continue to serve as director of investor relations....

Cost of liability coverage jumps 51% for nursing homes.(Briefing)
July 1, 2004... On average, nursing homes paid 51% more for medical-malpractice premiums in 2003 compared with the previous year, according to a new study by Aon Risk Consultants Inc., which said the industry is a key target for litigation as frequency and...

Health Net Inc.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Health Net Inc. has named Gerald V. Coil president of Health Net Life Insurance Co. Coil will continue to serve as president of Managed Health Network Inc., Health Net Inc.'s behavioral health subsidiary. At the same time, Health Net Inc....

Cason Group.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Cason Group, a wholesaler of group and individual life and health insurance products, named Phyllis Johnson vice president of operations and human resources. Johnson joined Cason Group in 2001.

WellChoice Inc.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... WellChoice Inc. named John F. McGillicuddy as chairman. McGillicuddy has served on WellChoice's board since August 1993 and will continue as a director of Kelso & Co. He succeeds Philip Briggs, who recently retired.

American Re Insurance Co.(People in Insurance)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... American Re Insurance Co. named Greg Coda senior vice president and business unit leader of its national accounts group, which is a division of the company's direct treaty unit. Most recently, Coda served as senior vice president of John P....

Insolvency most often pinned to insufficient loss reserves.(By the Numbers)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The U.S. property/casualty industry in the past decade has shown resiliency and improved risk management amid extraordinary events. Since 1969, this business segment has experienced wide fluctuations in annual impairment rates, according to...

Meetings.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
July 1, 2004... July 12-14 Singapore Insurance Brokers Association, 4th Singapore International Insurance Brokers Conference, Swissotel The Stamford, Singapore. Phone: 65 68355107. Web site: www.ibc-asia.com/ SIBA.htm. July 18-21 Disability...

Marsh acquires Kroll in $1.9 billion cash deal.(Briefing)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Marsh & McLennan Cos. said it would acquire Kroll Inc., which Marsh calls the world's leading risk mitigation services firm, for $1.9 billion in cash, in a move that Marsh said would "broaden significantly" its range of risk and insurance...

Homeowners rates inch up in 2004.(Briefing)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Homeowners premiums are expected to rise only 2.8% in 2004, marking the smallest increase in five years and a return to stability after several years of disastrous underwriting results, according to the Insurance Information Institute. The...

Survey: 2005 HMO rates will rise; growth slower than recent years.(Briefing)(Health-Maintenance Organizations)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Rates for health-maintenance organizations in 2005 will increase again in the double digits, a new survey has found, but the increases are showing signs of moderation. Preliminary 2005 HMO rates, which are rates before plan changes,...

Best's rating changes.(Ratings)(Illustration)
July 1, 2004... This summary of Best's Rating Changes includes life, health-care and property/casualty insurers domiciled in North America, as well as international insurers that had ratings assigned, changed or placed under review since this section last...

Bulking up: acquisition-hungry life insurers are fueling an uptick in consolidation, but there is debate over whether the next wave of buyers will want entire companies or selected books of business.(Life)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * As life insurers strive to diversify their revenue streams, more mergers are expected. * Some experts say that instead of acquisitions of entire companies, insurers are likely to grow by buying blocks of business. *...

Below the profit line: after 26 years, property/casualty's combined ratio may reach the profitable side of 100.(Property/Casualty)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Several insurance experts predict the property/casualty industry's combined ratio could drop below 100 in 2004 for the first time since 1978, when it was 97.5. * Disciplined underwriting, a key to a low combined ratio, may...

Courting the agents: property/casualty insurers are using technology and education to persuade independent agents to represent them.(Agent/Broker)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Amid rising competition, property/casualty insurers are developing programs and approaches to win shelf space for their products with independent agents. * Chubb has established an entire unit dedicated to instructing...

Unfamiliar faces: who are the uninsured? Health insurers and policymakers who know the answer are more likely to contribute to solving the problem.(Health/Employee Benefits)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Currently, 43.6 million Americans--8.5 million of whom are children--are either uninsured or underinsured. * The uninsured population isn't a homogenous group. Understanding the makeup of the uninsured population helps...

Know your company's 'DNA': certain characteristics determine how a company responds to challenges, and once these are identified, the company can work to improve its performance.(Health)
July 1, 2004... Like people, health insurance companies have individual personalities that can affect their performance. By examining key traits, a company can identify its organizational"DNA"--embedded characteristics that determine how the company responds...

Asi Piensa Allstate.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Allstate Corp. is reaching out to the Hispanic community through a new series of ads featuring actor Esai Morales, who's best known for his work on the television series NYPD Blue and American Family. The ad series--"Asi Piensa Allstate" or...

Hartford expands coverage for truckers and cargo.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Truck drivers no longer have to worry about getting their cargo to its destination if their trucks become disabled. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. has broadened and simplified its carrier-for-hire cargo coverage, which addresses a...

Nationwide's got your ring.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. is offering its catchy, almost 40-year-old jingle "Nationwide Is On Your Side" to cell phone users, who can download the jingle to use as their ring tone. Called "jingle casting," the phenomenon is a growing...

Erie Insurance rolls out Safety Bug.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Erie Insurance Group and the Pennsylvania DUI Association have rolled out a customized Volkswagen Beetle that allows teens to see firsthand how driving while impaired feels. The Safety Bug has been engineered so a trained mentor can alter...

"EPL insurance: fortifying coverage look for these six provisions in writing an employment practices liability policy.(Property/Casualty)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Changes in civil rights laws and growing attention to workplace behavior have made employment practices liability insurance a staple of most organizations' coverage. * Buyers of such coverage must measure their policies...

Fast finance: with the help of investment banks, insurers are cooking up new reasons and ways to tap into the capital markets--and investors are gobbling up the offerings.(Reinsurance/Capital Markets)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Insurers are using innovative transactions to raise capital or transfer risk to the capital markets. * More than $9.5 billion in insurance-linked securities has been issued since 1996. * Small to mid-sized insurers...

The power of the portal: Axa Financial's AXAonline and WebStation help nearly 125,000 users find information instantaneously.(Technology)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Axa Financial's retail portal AXAonline and its new Internet system WebStation are currently reaching nearly 125,000 customers, advisers and other intermediaries. * Axa Financial was able to reuse technology, including 80%...

Information, please: insurers expect benefits and savings from a national health technology initiative.(Health/Employee Benefits)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Health insurers say the newly created position of national health information technology coordinator could lead to better and more efficient health care. * A key task for Dr. David J. Brailer will be to move the...

A different set of rules: underwriting life insurance for applicants older than 75 requires fresh evaluations and new uses of old tools.(Life)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Universal life and variable universal life are the main markets for people older than 75. * Applying a percentage of an industry table to this market pricing is not completely appropriate. * Frailty and cognitive...

Jackson National Life Insurance Co.(New Products and Services)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Jackson National Life Insurance Co. launched Perspective Investor, its first-ever variable universal life product. It's a flexible premium, variable universal life product designed to provide the security of base life coverage for the duration...

MetLife Retirement & Savings.(New Products and Services)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... MetLife Retirement & Savings launched a new savings program--MetLife Personal Pension Builder. It provides employees with the ability to accumulate future guaranteed income for retirement while they're still working. Offered as a voluntary...

Minnesota Life Insurance Co.(New Products and Services)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Minnesota Life Insurance Co. offers a new adjustable life policy, VAL Summit, designed to provide a high death benefit for a relatively low premium. The product was developed to compete with death benefit-focused variable policies. VAL Summit...

Variable annuities bounce back in time for boomers' retirement.(Life)
July 1, 2004... Variable annuities rode out the impact of poor equity performance in recent years, returning to profitability in 2003, just as the baby boomers started reaching retirement age. Preliminary data in the study "Variable Annuities: An Industry...

Always in the family: the years have been kind to Sobel Affiliates Inc., which has bucked consolidation to keep growing as a family owned brokerage.(Agent/Broker)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Sobel Affiliates Inc. remains a family owned insurance brokerage as it approaches its centennial. * The agency has carved out niches in areas such as summer camps, health care and nonprofit organizations, while maintaining...

A hard sell: the solution to adding new producers may be to look outside the industry.(Agent/Broker)
July 1, 2004... Growing your business is not an option anymore: It's a requirement. Carriers are raising their thresholds and looking to increase their volume with their most productive agencies. However, carrier demands and agency capabilities are sometimes...

Loss stoppers: alternative reinsurance designs can reduce some of the uncertainty surrounding terrorism.(Reinsurance/Capital Markets)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Some reinsurers are writing terrorism reinsurance on an excess-of-loss basis. * Quota-share reinsurance may provide some relief from losses due to terrorism. * Whole account stop-loss reinsurance provides underwriting...

The Best Defense: carriers and the companies they insure must prepare for violence or disasters occurring in the workplace.(Property/Casualty)
July 1, 2004... In Irvine, Calif., a retail employee killed two co-workers with a samurai sword. In Sacramento, Calif., a security guard, suspended for vandalizing his girlfriend's car, shot three co-workers, including the girlfriend. In Massachusetts, a...

Slow road, steady success: the beauty of inland marine is the expectation of steady profitability, but it can be a long, tortuous journey.(Property/Casualty)(Swiss Reinsurance America Corp)
July 1, 2004... A rear-view mirror look at the 1990s shows that many changes and progressions occurred in the business world and in the insurance industry. We started the decade, for example, lauding the benefits of the fax machine. We ended the '90s with the...

See a teen driving badly? Just go get mom (or dad).(Property/Casualty)(Go-Get-Mom LLC)
July 1, 2004... As Donna Graf worried about her 16-year-old son starting to drive, she wished there was someone who could watch over him the way she would--if she could always be in the car with him. "Kids are much more afraid of their parents than the...

OneBeacon enters E&S property market.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... OneBeacon Insurance Group LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of White Mountains insurance Group Ltd., said it would continue its expansion into niche markets by entering the excess and surplus lines property business through its new OneBeacon...

Chubb offers free handbook on commercial liability.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Chubb Commercial Insurance has created a free Intellectual Property, Privacy and Communications Risk Management Handbook, which is designed to assist companies of any size in evaluating and managing their risk. The book focuses on copyrighted...

Hartford Steam Boiler offers rider for farm machinery.(Property/Casualty)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Hartford Steam Boiler, which has offered individual equipment breakdown policies for many years to farms and ranches through independent brokers, now is offering a customized farm equipment breakdown insurance product to other property/casualty...

The case for outsourcing claims: outsourcing can be a wise move, but insurers need to look at their unique circumstances before taking this step.(Technology)
July 1, 2004... Key Points * Outsourcing, while increasingly popular among insurers seeking to cut costs, should be done only after careful consideration of multiple issues. * Large, in-house claims-management infrastructures can drain resources that...

Getting tactical: senior IT managers can use models as governing templates to enforce standards for quality and cost management.(Technology)
July 1, 2004... Insurance companies are faced with myriad business-technology mandates to keep costs low, customer service up and regulatory requirements straight. It is no wonder, then, that insurers are joining the ranks of companies creating...

Jefferson National Life Insurance Co. and BISYS, which provides business-process outsourcing solutions for the financial-services sector, launched Simple Term, an agent-sold term life insurance product that is distributed through an online application and issuance process.(Web News You Can Use)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Jefferson National Life Insurance Co. and BISYS, which provides business-process outsourcing solutions for the financial-services sector, launched Simple Term, an agent-sold term life insurance product that is distributed through an online...

Philadelphia Insurance Cos.(Web News You Can Use)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Philadelphia Insurance Cos. launched AutoIDweb, a new service on its AccessPHLY Agent Web portal. AutoIDweb provides agents access to their commercial-auto policies with the ability to add/delete vehicles and print compliant auto ID cards in...

Selective Insurance Group Inc.(Web News You Can Use)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Selective Insurance Group Inc. has successfully completed rollout of its fully integrated, Web-based commercial lines system. Web-based CLAS offers policy quote, issue, endorsement and renewal processing for commercial-lines products over the...

MetLife.(Web News You Can Use)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... MetLife introduced an online Individual Disability Income Broker Portal designed to simplify the policy-application and case-management processes for brokers by providing access to real-time information. Through the portal, MetLifeIDI.com,...

IT spending on the rise.(Technology)
July 1, 2004... Insurance providers are expected to spend more than $25 billion this year in information technology and telecom services, according to Frost & Sullivan. Frost & Sullivan recently completed research on the IT and telecom opportunities for...

Corporate changes.(Life and health: regulatory/law)
July 1, 2004... The number of mergers and retirements in the life/health industry increased in 2003 compared with the numbers in 2002. In 2003, 30 mergers took place, compared with 27 the previous year. Also in 2003, 37 companies changed their names and...

Corporate changes.(Property/casualty: regulatory/law)
July 1, 2004... The number of state actions continued to rise in 2003 to 45 compared with 44 in 2002 and 35 in 2001. This year's corporate changes study, based on filing and A.M. Best Co. data, shows 23 new property/casualty insurers entered the market in...

Converging efforts: a risk-based regulatory model may be around the corner as insurers' compliance efforts come together with NAIC initiatives.(Regulatory/Law)
July 1, 2004... Achieving a regulatory model that is more effective in monitoring risk has long been a goal of the insurance industry and its regulators. Now, as a result of converging efforts to improve internal controls and risk assessment, there are real...

ING U.S. jumps to top spot with $7.4 billion in life sales.(Companies)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... ING U.S. Financial Services completed the first quarter as the top-ranked life insurer by U.S. sales on significant improvements in its already healthy annuities and retirement services businesses, the company said. According to Chief...

Genworth IPO nets $2.83B; sluggish market bites prices.(Companies)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Genworth Financial Inc.'s $2.83 billion initial public offering is the largest of the year and made significantly more money than the majority of IPOs. However, market declines and the maturity of the company led to little excitement from...

Berkshire Hathaway agrees to buy White Mountains stock.(Companies)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Bermuda-based White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. said that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has agreed to exercise all of its warrants to purchase common shares of White Mountains, which will allow the company to collect about $294 million in cash....

Alaska USA credit union to acquire Insurance Brokers.(Companies)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's largest federal credit unions, said it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Ribelin Lowell and Co. Insurance Brokers. Terms weren't disclosed. Ribelin Lowell is the largest...

Coming up ... in August.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The State of Reinsurance: Reinsurers had a strong, if tumultuous, 2003, as strong pricing and favorable conditions dovetailed with a new emphasis on underwriting discipline. Interesting times continue in 2004, as signs of softening begin to...

Mark him present: after 30 years of meetings, response vice president is the unofficial NAIC historian.(The Last Word)(National Association of Insurance Commissioner)
July 1, 2004... It's like clockwork. Four times a year, almost every year, August Alegi packs a suitcase and heads out to attend the quarterly meetings of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Few have been going as long as he has--more than...