E&S/Specialty

Risk retention trade groups are urging prompt House action on legislation introduced last week that will allow their members to sell commercial property insurance.

An economic recovery could halt the movement by standard carriers into markets traditionally served by excess and surplus lines insurers, industry experts said.

With $80 million of private equity capital, Kinsale Capital Group, Ltd. announced the formation of a new Richmond, Va.-based excess and surplus lines company.

For the second straight year, captive owners said securing collateral from banks to satisfy their fronting companies is their top concern, a survey by the Captive Insurance Companies Association has revealed.

Legislation will be introduced in the House allowing risk retention groups to sell commercial property insurance, according to an industry source.

Two Bermuda-based companies, Max Capital Group and Harbor Point Ltd., agreed to merge last week, creating a global insurance and reinsurance enterprise with total capital of $3 billion.

The market will harden--eventually--but a cycle turn is not in the cards for 2010, according to the consensus view of NAPSLO members attending the Mid-Year Leadership Forum who shared their views with NU's E&S/Specialty Lines Extra.

We have a higher cost of capital because we're in a volatile class," he said, referring to the heavy weighting of the company's business in catastrophe lines.