What Will Be The Top-10 Stories Of 2008?

It’s relatively easy to pick the top 10 stories of the year that just passed, as I did in my Dec. 24 blog entry, but predicting events that will rock the industry in the year ahead takes chutzpah! Click on to check out my picks, and feel free to weigh in, and offer some alternatives after peering into your own crystal ball.

#1. Hail To The New Chief! The good news for the industry is that former trial attorney John Edwards will not be our next president. However, expect a Democrat—most probably Hillary Clinton—to be voted into the White House in November, which means health care reform will be the top story for 2009!

#2: Bottom’s Up! Everyone sounds pretty confident carriers will maintain underwriting discipline and keep pricing rational, but I’m not. Look for price cuts to accelerate midyear for all but cat-exposed risks.

#3. Stormy Weather? Insurers have enjoyed more lives than the proverbial cat, given the fact that no major hurricanes hit in the past two years—although many major windstorms passed south of our coastlines. I hope I’m wrong, but I cannot believe the industry’s luck will hold up for a third straight season. Brace yourselves for another $20 billion loss, resurrecting talk of a national catastrophe fund.

#4: Break It Up! Now that Mike Cherkasky announced he will be bailing out as CEO of Marsh & McLennan, look for his replacement to either sell off pieces of the conglomerate, or perhaps even auction the entire firm to the highest bidder—most likely a foreign buyer capitalizing on the sweet exchange rate.

#5:Bargain Hunters! The cheap dollar should also attract at least one major acquisition of a U.S. property-casualty insurer by a foreign investor, as the soft market and excess capital drives further consolidation in the industry.

#6: Is Noah Covered? Democrats in Congress will push to add wind coverage to the National Flood Insurance Program. But with President George W. Bush no more likely to go along than he was when it came to expanding TRIA, expect a bare-bones extension right before the Sept. 30 expiration date.

#7: TRIA Revisited? Rep. Barney Frank and other Democratic leaders have vowed to push for expansion of coverage under the government’s terrorism reinsurance program to include events involving weapons of mass destruction. But no matter how many studies are conducted or hearings convened, that’ll never happen as long as President Bush is in office.

#8: Under The Radar! After being pummeled in Congress for all of 2007 over the mistreatment of policyholders hit by both flood and wind damage during Hurricane Katrina, expect deepening concern over fallout from the subprime loan crisis and the preoccupation with election year campaigning to let insurers off the hot seat at last.

#9: Storm Clouds Hit Sunshine State! After a year-long war of words between Florida insurers and lawmakers over whether carriers are doing enough to lower property rates after the state passed a law providing below-market reinsurance, the battlefield will switch to the courts as high-powered trial lawyers initiate a class-action suit. It’s another black eye for the industry’s already battered reputation, but this is one fight insurers will win on the merits.

#10: Foreign Reinsurers Welcome! With New York and Florida having already “gone rogue” by proposing their own systems allowing foreign carriers to write reinsurance without necessarily having to put up 100 percent collateral, look for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to finally bow to marketplace realities. NAIC will head off regulatory chaos by at last approving a national standard, featuring a sliding scale of collateral for all carriers.

So, what do you think? Am I psychic or just psycho?