MarketScout: 2012 Begins With Rate Increases
Calendar year 2012 started with a composite property and casualty rate increase of 1 percent, according to online insurance exchange MarketScout. In its latest market analysis, MarketScout noted that the 1 percent composite rate increase in January matched the increase in December 2011. Richard Kerr, CEO of MarketScout, said: Workers’ compensation and catastrophe exposed property [...]

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Predicting the Super Bowl Winner
Who will win Super Bowl XLVI this Sunday? If you’re wondering whether you should be backing the New York Giants or the New England Patriots look no further than the Super Bowl Prediction System of sports statistician John Dewan. In his Stat of the Week, the owner of Baseball Info Solutions and co-publisher of ACTA [...]

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Arbitration Saves Industry Millions In Litigation Costs
In a new record, nearly 520,000 insurance claims disputes valued at more than $2.4 billion were resolved via arbitration in 2011, Arbitration Forums Inc reports. According to AF, the nation’s largest provider of inter-insurance dispute resolution services, it is saving the property/casualty insurance industry more than $700 million in litigation costs annually. Disputes leading to [...]

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Update On U.S. Tort Costs
U.S. tort costs increased by 5.1 percent in 2010, driven by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Towers Watson reports. In its 2011 Update on U.S. Tort Cost Trends, Towers Watson notes that absent the cost from this event, tort costs would have shown an overall [...]

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EEOC: Another Record Year for Job Bias Claims
As we first reported last November, job bias charges reported to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hit an all-time high of nearly 100,000 in fiscal year 2011 for the second year in a row. This week the EEOC confirmed that it received a record 99,947 charges of employment discrimination in fiscal year 2011, [...]

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Top Jury Verdicts Rise Again in 2011
The size of the top 10 jury awards rose for a fourth consecutive year in 2011, according to a recent report from Lawyers USA. The 10 largest jury verdicts in 2011 totaled $1.84 billion, an increase of 15 percent from $1.6 billion in 2010. Lawyers USA noted that the average award for 2011 increased by [...]

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Supply Chain Disruption, Insurance, and Risk Management
An article in the New York Times Saturday drew attention to the ongoing supply chain issues in the wake of last year’s flooding in Thailand. In the Nava Nakom industrial zone located just north of Bangkok, only 15 percent of 227 factories operating in the zone have restarted production of electronics and computer parts, according [...]

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WEF: Global Risks 2012
Economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization, warns the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its just-released report Global Risks 2012. Respondents to the survey worry that further economic shocks and social upheaval could roll back the progress globalization has brought, and that the world’s institutions are ill-equipped to cope with today’s [...]

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Global Markets Play Key Role In Costa Concordia Loss
Reports suggest that insured losses arising from the grounding and capsize of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the west coast of Italy Friday night could make it the largest marine insurance loss in history. So far, six are confirmed dead and 29 reported missing after the Costa Concordia, carrying over 4,000 passengers and crew, [...]

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Back To Basics
After a record year for natural catastrophes, a tepid economic recovery and ongoing low interest rate environment, insurers are focusing firmly on underwriting discipline. This was a key message communicated by insurer and reinsurer CEOs in a panel discussion at the 16th annual Property/Casualty Joint Industry Forum #JIF2012 earlier this week. Industry CEOs representing small and [...]

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