Latest Underwriting Headlines

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

Web Enables Agents to Cut Processing Time for Small Business Accounts

Mar 11 2002 // When the prospect of selling insurance over the Internet first reared its head, one of the initial impressions it left was that it posed a threat to independent insurance agents and brokers. Futurists proclaimed a new...

NAPSLO Mid-Year Meeting Largest in Association’s History

Mar 11 2002 // The National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO) held its mid-year meeting Feb. 24-27 in San Antonio, Texas—the largest such meeting in the history of the association.Originally scheduled for last...

GE Coregis Unveils New Underwriting Structure

Mar 7 2002 // GE ERC Commercial Insurance announced two additions at Chicago-based Coregis Insurance Company to enhance service to its public entity customers. Lynn Boyle and Jason Mostofsky have been appointed as Underwriting Leaders,...

W.R. Berkley Corp. Names Appointments to Berkley Capital Underwriters

Mar 4 2002 // W. R. Berkley Corporation announced the appointments of Richard Agatstein and Joan E. Kapfer, each to the office of senior vice president of Berkley Capital Underwriters, LLC, a recently formed specialty reinsurance...

PAULA Financial Subsidiary to Exit Workers’ Comp

Mar 4 2002 // PAULA Financial announced that its underwriting subsidiary, PAULA Insurance Company, will voluntarily cease underwriting workers’ compensation business effective immediately.This decision comes as a result of claims...

Hard DnO Market Tests Relationships of Underwriters, Brokers and Insureds

Feb 28 2002 // The hardening market for Directors and Officers liability coverage is forcing brokers and their clients to accept higher rates, less coverage and larger retentions, panelists told a recent PLUS D&O Symposium. These...

Analysts and CEOs See Eye-to-Eye at P/C Joint Industry Forum

Feb 25 2002 // Analysts and insurance company CEOs who recently addressed the Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum in New York City presented remarkably consistent predictions about the future of the insurance industry in the...

Analysts and CEOs See Eye-to-Eye at P/C Joint Industry Forum

Feb 25 2002 // Analysts and insurance company CEOs who recently addressed the Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum in New York City presented remarkably consistent predictions about the future of the insurance industry in the...

The Ocean Marine Market: A Unique Animal

Feb 25 2002 // Like life itself, insurance began in the ocean, eventually spawning like the varius land-based descendents we’ve come to know. While those terrestrial variants-auto, homeowners, commercial liability, among others-now...

The St. Paul Cos. Names Kae Lovaas Senior VP

Feb 21 2002 // The St. Paul Companies announced that Kae Lovaas, 46, has been named senior vice president in charge of operations for the company’s U.S. Insurance Operations.Lovaas will report to Marita Zuraitis, executive vice...

Twenty-One States Introduce Bills to Ban, Restrict Use of Credit-Based Scoring

Feb 15 2002 // As of Feb. 12, 2002, 21 states have introduced bills that would ban or restrict the use of credit-based insurance scoring according to the National Association of Independent Insurers. On Feb. 13, the Minnesota House...

CNA Surety Announces 4Q Decrease in Net Income

Feb 12 2002 // CNA Surety Corporation reported that net income for the fourth quarter of 2001 decreased to $0.6 million, or $0.01 per share, from $12.0 million, or $0.28 per share, for the same period in 2000. Operating earnings, after...

Commercial Auto Agents: Between a Rock and a Hard Market

Feb 11 2002 // The cyclical ups and downs of the multisegmented arena referred to collectively as commercial auto are nothing new. Though the years referred to as “soft” and “hard” vary in both length and...

Before Diving in, Agents Attracted by Captive Profits Must Analyze Challenges

Feb 11 2002 // Thinking of forming an agency captive? An agent-owned captive insurance company involves an agency capitalizing either a domestic insurance company or an offshore insurance company. Richard Turner, president of...

Building Profitability into the Commercial Auto Market

Feb 11 2002 // Like most property and casualty insurance lines, the commercial auto insurance market has witnessed rate increases over the past year and expects to see more. And, as in other lines, underwriters are scrutinizing accounts...

NAII Stresses Legal, Competitive Reasons for Use of Credit Information

Feb 4 2002 // Insurance scores provide companies an objective and unbiased underwriting tool, Sam Sorich, vice president and western regional manager of the National Association of Independent Insurers (NAII) explained last week during...

Bill Restricting Credit-Based Scores Would Cause ‘Staggering’ Premium Hike

Feb 1 2002 // According to the National Association of Independent Insurers (NAII), pricing restrictions in pending legislation on insurers’ use of credit-based insurance scores would require low-risk consumers to pay...

Converium to Underwrite Midwest Crop Coverage

Jan 31 2002 // Switzerland’s Converium Holding Ltd. announced that its U.S. subsidiary Converium Insurance (North America) Inc. (formerly ZC Insurance Company) has reached an agreement with Crop 1 Insurance of Des Moines, Iowa to...

E&S Lines Basking in the Warm Glow of a Hard Market

Jan 28 2002 // Early in 2000, insurance prices started doing something they had not done in almost 15 years. They began to increase, and they kept growing at a modest pace into the third quarter of 2001, when the events of September 11...

When Good Employees Go Bad: Crime Insurance for Employee Dishonesty & Fraud

Jan 28 2002 // • A California man pled guilty to knowingly receiving, possessing and without authorization appropriating stolen trade secret information belonging to his former employer—specifically, customer and order information in...