Want to Reduce Cyber Risk? Avoid These 25 Worst Passwords of 2011
.
On way to help lower personal and business cyber risk is to avoid using easy-to-crack passwords. SplashData, a password management application maker, recently compiled a list of the 25 worst passwords for the year 2011.
The research results were based on millions of actually stolen passwords that were made available online.
Having tough-to-guess passwords may not necessarily deter sophisticated, determined hackers. But they do make it much more difficult for amateur cyber thieves to breach online accounts. Here is the list of this year’s worst online passwords.
1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football
Some in the insurance industry are staking their futures on the reputations of others. That is, they are looking to insure reputational risk.
With the boom in social media, interest in reputational risk has itself boomed. The term refers to a company’s risk of having its reputation damaged because of certain events or incidents and the fallout that takes place because of these incidents. In some cases, the effects can be severe enough to put a company out of business.
In recent months, Aon (along with Zurich) Willis and Chartis have also come out with policies that address the exposures of reputational risk and offer risk management services to help corporations keep their reputations intact.
The Reputation Institute in London, England, deals with issues of reputation management and the strategic importance of reputation, its assets and effects on a company’s balance sheet. The Institute also studies how a company will be able to perform, or survive, if a crisis were to occur.
Seamus Gillen, senior adviser at Reputation Institute, says these new insurance policies are just the tip of the iceberg and there are whispers that insurers see this as the next big class of business.
“It has been understood and acknowledged universally that the crystallization of reputation risk creates or leads to value destruction,” he says. “The financial impact on companies which go through a crisis can be significant. Suddenly people all over the world and within financial media have been putting a term on that.”
The Reputational Institute doesn’t offer crisis management, but Gillen says that it often does end up inside companies that are trying to put out fires.
“We are more proactive – what framework companies need to put into place to manage reputation,” Gillen says.
Recently, the Reputation Institute has been increasingly asked to address reputational risk and give input on reputational insurance products, according to Gillen.
“Reputational risk as a concept is really coming into its own. Previously people talk about reputation and brand and PR and all that – now everyone is talking about reputational risk,” he says. “We are seeing a lot of markets reactions to that with the insurance industry seeking to set up products for clients.”
The Reputation Institute doesn’t offer insurance or work in the industry, but Giillen says it was approached recently by a major London insurer about partnering on an insurance product.
Gillen says his organization has stood on the sidelines when it comes to endorsing any insurance coverages or companies. But that is about to change. The institute will only issue an endorsement when it is sure it is the right fit and a worthwhile product. He said there is a deal being negotiated and an announcement could come soon.
“There is no shortage of crisis management people who want to work with us and we are likely to go into the market,” he says. “People need support to make their business a success. It is about taking philosophies of my reputation and risk management to create a coherent strategy. People are coming to us and saying, ‘how can you help me with this?’”
Robert Yellen, chief underwriting officer for the executive liability division of Chartis in New York, says the company launched its new ReputationGuard product because of what it was hearing from its corporate clients.
“At the board level, the number one non-financial concern [for companies] is reputation,” he says. “It is more and more common for the press to glob onto things that put a company’s reputation at risk. The old adage says, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.’”
Yellen says he has seen a few other coverages in the marketplace that deal with a crisis and insurance responses to the crisis itself, as well as pieces to the policy that deal with reputation and communication in a limited amount or context, but they use named or limited peril coverage triggers.
ReputationGuard was designed to help insureds cope with reputational threats, providing access to reputation and crisis communications firms Burson-Marsteller and Porter Novelli and coverage for costs associated with avoiding or minimizing the potential impact of negative publicity.
There are two categories of coverage:
1.For reputation attacks: a public attack upon a company’s reputation. The costs of hiring communications experts from the Chartis panel and communications costs.
2.For reputation threats: acts or events that the company believes, if made public, would have a material impact on the company’s reputation and would be seen as a breach of trust by the company’s stakeholders.
Chartis is not excluding any business segments but is most interested in those with revenues of $500,000 to $2 billion.
Yellen says the product is targeted to middle-market companies because larger companies are more likely to have in-house teams to deal with these issues. The middle-market and smaller companies may also need more assistance in putting the proper risk management procedures in place.
“Everyone has a reputation at stake, that is a common theme among business,” says Yellen. “People can argue that small businesses, like generic component manufacturers, don’t care, but in the regions we sell to, that’s not a mentality we see. Everyone cares about their reputation.”
Willis is taking a more segment specific route with its new Hotel Reputation Protection 2.0 policy, which responds to incidents that lead to, or are likely to lead to, hotel business losses from adverse publicity through any medium, from traditional to new media.
The policy provides cover for lost revenue based on RevPAR figures, a performance metric in the hotel industry that measures revenue per available room. The coverage also covers the cost of hiring a crisis management consulting firm during the first weeks of an incident.
“This product provides immediate assistance to a client who is suffering an incident which through social media will damage their brand,” says Laurie Fraser, Global Markets Leisure practice leader for Willis Group Holdings in London.
Fraser says the product was predicated on research in reputation, causes of concern to hotels, worldwide figures for incidents and the magnitude. It was designed in consultation with hotels. In the first week the product was launched, there were 32 inquiries, according to Fraser.
“Brand and reputation is an area of increasing importance and concern, especially among our hotel clients,” says Fraser.
Gillen agrees that insurers have a huge opportunity to help companies prevent a crisis with insurance products and access to outside resources.
“Unequivocally, in my view the biggest value piece [of reputational risk insurance] is to help the client understand and help prevent a crisis from happening in the first place,” says Gillen.
Gillen says there is no shortage of reputational risks from social media and the Internet in general, from corporate manslaughter, money laundering, corporate corruption, and terrorism. Consumers also have more awareness of how to affect a company’s fate.
“Companies need to be very careful about where they position themselves in order to get where they want to go because it can be fatal if they don’t take it seriously,” he says.
The combination of all the potential risks, says Gillen, is enough to make reputational risk insurance a hot commodity.
“I think [reputational risk insurance] will take off because there will be enough people out there that want some reassurance and their boards wanting reassurance that the company has the best crisis responses in place,” he says. “This is probably an idea that’s time has come.”
Executive Concern
The concern over reputational risk is reflected in the results of a new survey by Lloyd’s. The 2011 Lloyd’s Risk Index polled 500 C-Suite and board level executives in North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere to assess corporate risk priorities and attitudes around the world. Business leaders were asked to rank the biggest risks they now face. In 2009 reputational risk was ranked ninth, in 2011 it came in third.
According to Lloyd’s, a 2010 study (Oxford Metrica Reputation Review) of the world’s 1,000 largest companies found 80 percent of companies lose more than 20 percent of their value at least once in a 5-year period because of a major reputational event.
“Business fails to protect itself from reputational damage at its peril,” says the Lloyd’s report, which claims certain business practices can directly increase the likelihood of reputational risk, including operating in new territories without a thorough understanding of local geopolitics, as many international companies operating in Nigeria have discover
The Travelers Companies CEO Jay Fishman said at a financial conference yesterday that his company raised rates for business insurance customers by 5.2 percent in October, followed by 5.8 percent in November, according to a news report.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Travelers CEO Fishman offered these comments at a Goldman Sachs financial services conference Tuesday. Those rate increases represent largest price hikes in a number of years.
The Travelers’ principal tactic right now is to drive rate, CEO Fishman was quoted as saying in the report. There is a sense of optimism building around this, and a notion that the company can continue to drive this strategy successfully, he said at the conference.
His comments seem to support the latest industry report that says the overall business insurance prices are rising.
A report this week from MarketScout says the soft-market cycle has finally broken. The firm’s November Market Barometer report notes that November 2011 had the first composite-rate increase, up an average of 1 percent, since the soft market began in February 2005.
MarketScout, an electronic insurance exchange, said commercial rates for every coverage class are at least flat, with a 2 percent hike in commercial property, business owners’ policies, and workers’ comp. Biggest rate hikes came from small accounts. But large accounts saw smaller rate increases or even continued decreases in rates, it said.
When you hear the U.S. government now requires all health insurance plans to cover a certain medical procedure, it may feel like a win for consumers. The part they don’t tell you is what this new mandated coverage is actually costing on the back end – hence driving up premiums.
One mandate in New Jersey allows coverage for four cycles of in-vitro fertilization (per lifetime) for employees of companies with more than 50 employees, which can cost the carrier upwards of $40,000; the costs don’t stop there. With in-vitro fertilization, mothers often have multiple births, premature births and/or high-risk pregnancies requiring more monitoring, and more costs all around.
While it is not my point to say that a person should or should not be entitled to have a child, it is a costly mandate. I know of several people who went to work for a New Jersey large group employer instead of one in Pennsylvania so they could get this coverage. People will quit their jobs and come to a New Jersey employer when a $40,000 in-vitro benefit is part of the salary package.
There is a perception that the cost of new mandates is somehow absorbed by the government or by the health insurance carriers. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study showing a 9 percent increase in rates for employer-sponsored health insurance plans between 2010 and 2011 suggests that is not the case at all.
As an insurance broker and member of the New Jersey Association of Health Underwriters, I meet with small-business owners every day to discuss their health insurance plans. Often, the discussion turns to the costs of health insurance and what businesses can do to keep offering quality benefits to their employees. We review options that can save them money, such as higher-deductible plans combined with health savings accounts. These are useful options, but not the gold standard, no-questions-asked plans of years before.
We talk about special needs and certain coverage for specific illnesses. It is my job to explain to clients why the price of coverage continues to rise each year because of additional mandates and escalating medical costs. The average family health plan today costs more than $15,000 a year.
When lawmakers considering a new mandated health benefit convene, they hear from organizations and lobbyists dedicated to finding financial support to fight a certain health concern. They hear from passionate doctors who treat the ailment. They hear from patients who have suffered. I know the testimony can be compelling. What politician wants to be attacked in campaign ads for ignoring the needs of the sick?
More than 70 million drivers in the U.S. potentially are leaving car insurance savings on the table by not taking advantage of usage-based insurance programs that reward drivers who drive safely and during safe times of the day.
More and more carriers are providing usage-based or mileage-based insurance options, including telematic systems or devices that monitor insureds’ driving and mileage habits.
Progressive Insurance, a pioneer in the field which sells its own usage-based product called Snapshot, said it has found that drivers who drive less, more safely and during safer times of day are most likely to earn a discount.
Progressive commissioned Harris Interactive for a telephone survey of 1,003 U.S. adults in August to determine how many drivers might be missing out on discounts available through usage-based rating. Among the findings from the survey:
•50 percent of respondents say they drive less than 12,000 miles per year, even lower than the national average of 13,476 miles per year;
•84 percent of drivers define themselves as cautious (49 percent) or defensive (39 percent); and
•88 percent are never or rarely on the road between the hours of midnight to 4 a.m. – the most dangerous hours to drive as defined by Progressive.
When all three of these driving behaviors are considered, 39 percent of all U.S. drivers – or more than 70 million drivers – may be eligible to receive a discount on their car insurance, according to the Progressive survey findings.
“Good drivers should pay less for their car insurance – that’s something nearly everybody can agree on,” said Richard Hutchinson, general manager of usage-based insurance at Progressive. “Our data shows that more than 70 percent of all Snapshot drivers now enjoy extra savings, which is one reason why our program continues to grow so quickly.”
Snapshot rewards safe drivers with a discount of up to 30 percent on car insurance. Discounts are based on real-time collection of a customer’s driving habits using a telematic device that plugs into a car’s onboard diagnostic port.
Progressive is not the only insurer offering mileage-based car insurance. Safeco, Travelers, and others have similar offerings or are preparing to offer them.
“I can’t get through a week without having two or three more insurers asking to get more info about usage-based insurance in general or [our program] Drive Ability,” Robin Harbage, Towers Watson, recently told Insurance Journal and MyNewMarkets.com. Towers Watson provides insurers with the technology for usage-based programs. “It is the hottest thing going on in auto insurance and everybody is realizing how it is changing insurance.”
Harbage estimates that at least 60 percent of auto insurers have a UBI system in place in at least one state, and that number is growing.
According to Progressive, customers in its Snapshot program who have earned discounts have already saved more than $30 million, an average of about $150 per driver per year.
The Progressive survey found that 63 percent of American drivers would allow their auto insurer to gather this real-time information if it led to possible savings.
Progressive said that its own analysis of more than one million daily trips and nearly 3 billion driving miles suggests that not only do safe drivers save money with Snapshot, but Snapshot customers are 20 percent less likely to receive a ticket for a moving violation and 10 percent less likely to be in an accident.
If all states implemented comprehensive graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws, an estimated 2,000 lives could be saved. Further, if all 50 states were to enact comprehensive GDL laws, it could generate savings of $13.6 billion per year.
That’s according to the Allstate Foundation License to Save Report, developed in conjunction with the National Safety Council. The report found that over the last 20 years, graduated driver licensing laws have already saved an estimated 15,000 lives.
The report findings are timely, as Congress readies to consider reauthorization of highway and infrastructure spending – legislation that historically has included public health and safety measures.
Novice teenage drivers are the most likely drivers on the road to have car accidents. In fact, 16-year-old drivers have crash rates two times greater than 18-to-19-year-old drivers and four times that of older drivers, according to the report.
GDL helps new drivers gain experience under supervised and less risky conditions. The most comprehensive GDL laws include nighttime driving restrictions, passenger limits, cell phone and texting bans, mandatory behind-the-wheel driving time, minimum entry age for learner’s permit (16), and age 18 before full licensure. In some states that have enacted strong GDL laws, the incidence of teenage driving related deaths have dropped by as much as 40 percent.
“Teen driving deaths are a real public health crisis,” said Vicky Dinges, vice president of public social responsibility, Allstate. “What’s worse is that these deaths are avoidable.”
More than 81,000 people were killed in crashes involving drivers ages 15 to 20 in the decade from 2000 to 2009, making teen driving crashes the leading cause of teen deaths nationwide.
In addition to the lives lost, the report estimates that the total cost to the nation of crashes involving teen drivers in 2009 at $38.3 billion. These costs include wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses for public and private insurance, police and legal costs, motor vehicle damage, employers’ uninsured costs and fire losses. These costs were paid by employers, state and local governments and by citizens through taxes, fees and insurance premiums.
“Our elected officials do not have many opportunities during their careers to take action that will save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in one legislative action. This is one of those times,” said Janet Froetscher, president and CEO of the National Safety Council.
The report estimates of lives saved were generated using a 2007 study which analyzed the effect of graduated driver licensing programs to produce percentage reduction estimates compared to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s estimate of the number of young driver-related fatalities in each state.
If all states implemented comprehensive graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws, an estimated 2,000 lives could be saved. Further, if all 50 states were to enact comprehensive GDL laws, it could generate savings of $13.6 billion per year.
That’s according to the Allstate Foundation License to Save Report, developed in conjunction with the National Safety Council. The report found that over the last 20 years, graduated driver licensing laws have already saved an estimated 15,000 lives.
The report findings are timely, as Congress readies to consider reauthorization of highway and infrastructure spending – legislation that historically has included public health and safety measures.
Novice teenage drivers are the most likely drivers on the road to have car accidents. In fact, 16-year-old drivers have crash rates two times greater than 18-to-19-year-old drivers and four times that of older drivers, according to the report.
GDL helps new drivers gain experience under supervised and less risky conditions. The most comprehensive GDL laws include nighttime driving restrictions, passenger limits, cell phone and texting bans, mandatory behind-the-wheel driving time, minimum entry age for learner’s permit (16), and age 18 before full licensure. In some states that have enacted strong GDL laws, the incidence of teenage driving related deaths have dropped by as much as 40 percent.
“Teen driving deaths are a real public health crisis,” said Vicky Dinges, vice president of public social responsibility, Allstate. “What’s worse is that these deaths are avoidable.”
More than 81,000 people were killed in crashes involving drivers ages 15 to 20 in the decade from 2000 to 2009, making teen driving crashes the leading cause of teen deaths nationwide.
In addition to the lives lost, the report estimates that the total cost to the nation of crashes involving teen drivers in 2009 at $38.3 billion. These costs include wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses for public and private insurance, police and legal costs, motor vehicle damage, employers’ uninsured costs and fire losses. These costs were paid by employers, state and local governments and by citizens through taxes, fees and insurance premiums.
“Our elected officials do not have many opportunities during their careers to take action that will save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in one legislative action. This is one of those times,” said Janet Froetscher, president and CEO of the National Safety Council.
The report estimates of lives saved were generated using a 2007 study which analyzed the effect of graduated driver licensing programs to produce percentage reduction estimates compared to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s estimate of the number of young driver-related fatalities in each state.
Nearly half of the U.S. property insurance polices renewed in the current quarter have been at higher prices, adding fuel to an industry turnaround after years of decling rates.
With more than $70 billion in disaster lossed worldwide this year, insurers are anticipating what they call a “hard market”- a period or pricing strength where they can consistently raise customers’ rates.
The state-based workers’ compensation system has evolved and survived for 100 years but it could face tough challenges in the coming years as the country struggles to dig itself out of the deep recession.
The recession has caused an “unprecedented disruption of the labor market” that will have widespread and long-term effects, according to a leading workers’ compensation researcher and economist.
Richard Victor, executive director of the not-for-profit Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), is warning that one economic fact alone could trigger a re-examination of workers’ compensation and other job-related programs. It is that there are 25 million Americans vying for just 3.5 million available jobs. That’s seven people for every opening.
Victor dubbed this employment crisis the “elephant in the room” during his organization’s annual research conference in Boston.
The 25 million includes the unemployed and underemployed. In a normal economy, there might be half that many looking for work, he said.
Victor believes the issues raised by today’s unemployment crisis are structural. He said that there is a mismatch between the Americans looking for employment and many of the jobs available. In relation to workers’ compensation, Victor said many of the available jobs are “not matched to the skills, interests and location of injured workers.”
The point has been underscored by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Narayana Kocherlakota sees mismatch by geography, skills and other factors as a major issue and estimates this adds about 2.5 point to the unemployment rate.
The issues are not just temporary, in Victor’s view.
Just to fill the jobs gap left by the recession, the country needs to create about 6 million jobs; then it needs another 7 million jobs to keep pace with those newly entering the job market, Victor said.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the labor market lost almost 8.8 million jobs from a peak in January 2008 (138 million payroll jobs, when the unemployment rate was 5 percent) to the bottom in February 2010 (129.2 million).
The labor market needs to be producing far more jobs, as many as 300,000 a month to get back to normal levels of unemployment within five years.
Job creation will depend upon how fast the gross domestic product grows. Many economists expect GDP to grow less than 2.5 percent for the rest of this year and for all of next. At that rate, the economy will add just 125,000 jobs a month, barely keeping up with population growth.
Even at an optimistic GDP growth of 3.1 percent a year, it could take a decade or more for the country to get back to any “normal” employment situation, Victor said.
“So this [high unemployment] is going to be with us a long time,” said Victor.
The WCRI economist suggested that as society grapples with this chronic unemployment, job-related programs could come under pressure and state workers’ compensation systems could be drawn into a bigger debate over how to help pay for extended unemployment.
“How will the system cope?” he asked his WCRI audience of about 250.
He painted a potential scenario where employers, injured workers and public policymakers begin asking questions about workers’ compensation, questions that have been settled by state workers’ compensation systems in the past, but ones that may be re-opened because “it’s a different environment.”
Injured workers may ask if they will ever be rehired or if they should try to hold onto their workers’ comp benefits longer since no jobs are available.
There are 200,000 workers injured every month in the U.S. and the probability of re-employment goes down the longer someone is out of work, he said.
Employers may face more litigation as more workers turn to attorneys to help them fight for benefits. Business owners may start asking if benefit formulas should be reworked or standards for terminating benefits be revisited.
Also, some may question anew the feasibility of return-to-work, rehabilitation or retraining programs since few jobs are available.
Also in Victor’s scenario, state workers’ compensation boards will face bigger workloads. There could be more delays and longer durations for payments. The system, and its costs, may become less predictable. Some state systems may be more vulnerable than others.
Victor said he is particularly worried about those who will be entering the labor market over the next five to seven years and face limited opportunities. “This can have profound, long term effects,” he said.
To open the day and one-half WCRI research conference in Boston, Peter Barth, professor of economics (emeritus) at the University of Connecticut and long-time researcher and consultant on workers’ compensation issues, reviewed the 100-year history of workers’ compensation over which the system has evolved but stayed fundamentally the same.
“Have there been improvements? Yes,” Barth said. “Is there still room for improvement? Yes.”
WCRI attendees also heard advice on how to measure and manage workers’ compensation medical costs, how to improve patient care involving narcotics, and recommendations of alternative approaches to managing chronic pain.
Then Victor closed the conference with his much-anticipated “elephant” talk.
“The elephant’s coming. Be prepared,” he told his WCRI audience.
WCRI is an independent, not-for-profit research organization based in Cambridge, Mass.
In another indicator foreshadowing invevitable insurance premium increases, Moodys Investors Service reports that 2011 third quarter net income for its rated companies is down 70% from 2010
Moody’s report comes shortly after a Fitch Ratings report noting that a group of 47 insurers and reinsurers it tracks reported a net profit of $9.7 billion during the first nine months of 2011 compaed to a net gain of $26.4 billion during the same period of 2010.
Moody’s indicates that it expects modest premium growth to continue as companies seek further rate increases.
While 2011 will be remembered for significant catastrophes, it may also be remembered for the industry reaching a modulation point for pricing after multiple years of declines.
Moody believes these challenges shouold help fuel further price increases for Property & Casualty insurers
This article will give you great insight into where insurance premiums are headed in 2012……nowhere but UP!
The first-half results for property and casualty insurers are in and the results are not very pretty, as the industry reported more than a 71 percent drop in net income.
In a report issued by the Jersey City, N.J.-based Insurance Services Office (ISO), the Des Plaines, Ill.-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) and the New York-based Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), private U.S. P&C insurers’ net income fell to $4.8 billion for the first half of 2011 compared to $16.8 billion for the same period a year ago.
Driving the decline were net losses on underwriting, growing $19 billion to more than $24 billion for the first half of the year.
The total combined ratio for the carriers deteriorated 8.8 points to 110.5 for the first half of the year.
Catastrophes striking the United States in the first half of 2011 caused $23 billion in direct insured losses, before reinsurance recoveries, for all insurers, according to ISO’s Property Claim Services unit. That was up $14 billion from the same period last year. The number is three times the $7.7 billion average for first-half direct catastrophe losses during the past 10 years.
David Sampson, PCI’s president and CEO says, “Despite record-setting catastrophe losses from events like the deadly EF 5 tornado that struck Joplin, Mo. last May, insurers emerged from first-half 2011 financially sound and well able to continue providing essential financial protection to consumers and businesses alike—a quiet but important testament to insurers’ enterprise risk management and the effectiveness of state solvency regulation.”
Michael R. Murray, ISO’s assistant vice president for financial analysis says, “The 110.5 combined ratio for the first half of 2011 is the worst six-month underwriting result since the 111.1 combined ratio for first-half 2001. Even after adjusting for record catastrophe losses, the latest data indicates that insurers continued to face strong headwinds in their core business: underwriting.”
In his own commentary on the results, Robert P. Hartwig, president and chief economist for I.I.I., notes, “The [P&C] insurance industry turned in a weak performance during the first half of 2011. Although profitability slumped amid high catastrophe losses, premium growth remained positive, investment earnings were more robust than anticipated and policyholders’ surplus remained near its all-time record high.”
He adds that the outlook for the remainder of the year “is a cautious one given continued high third-quarter catastrophe losses, the prospect of high underwriting losses associated with non-cat losses and more uncertainty in the investment markets.”
The report says that deterioration in underwriting results is “largely attributable to a spike in net losses and loss adjustment expenses (LLAE) from catastrophes that totaled $24 billion, up from $8 billion in the first half of 2010.”
Partially offsetting the poor underwriting results, net investment gains grew $2.4 billion to $28.4 billion for the first half of 2011.
Net written premium rose $5.5 billion, or 2.6 percent, to $219 billion for the first half of this year.
Another measure of insurers’ financial health is policyholders’ surplus—insurers’ net worth measured according to Statutory Accounting Principles—fell $200 million to $559 billion.
Hartwig says that “fundamentally, the [P&C] insurance industry remains quite strong financially, with capital adequacy ratios remaining high relative to long-term historical averages.”
Murray notes that mortgage and financial guaranty insurers continue to “suffer disproportionate losses on underwriting” reflecting “weakness in the economy.”
Mortgage and financial guaranty insurers’ combined ratio improved 10 points to 186.3 for the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, says Murray, but the result was 76.9 points worse than the 109.4 combined ratio for the industry excluding mortgage and financial guaranty insurers.
The report is a consolidated estimate for all private U.S. P&C insurers based on reports accounting for at least 96 percent of all business written by them.
Related Articles
Florida ‘On the Right Track’ to Property Market Recovery Mass. AG Says Homeowners Rates Are Inflated; Criticizes Cat Models Travelers: Agents Say Clients Do Not Understand Fiduciary Exposure Congress Passes Another Short-Term NFIP Extension Insurer Catlin in Lloyd’s Venture with China Re Previous
Calif. Law Clarifies Agent/Broker Bond Requirements
Next
