Organizations and individuals routinely modify their views ofthe world, their perceptions, and their actions based on the newsstories of the day. For the property-casualty insurance industry,significant events in the general insurance or business environmentcreate issues that insurers must address.

By necessity, of course, this dynamic means responding toyesterdays news. But how might we modify our perceptions andactions if, in addition to knowing yesterdays news, we knewtomorrows news?

Through the wonders of actuarial time travel, we have obtained anedition of the National Underwriter from five years hence,including articles summarizing the Top Ten News Stories of 2005, asviewed from the perspective of the p-c insurance industry. Witheach of the top stories, the editors-of-the-future offer a briefanalysis of the important implications for insurers.

With some editorial adjustments to translate 2006 lingo into todaysvernacular, we are "pre-printing" the articles so that readers mayconsider the implications for their own companies.

Each year, the Long Range Planning Committee of the CasualtyActuarial Society considers various long-term trends that mayaffect the strategies and plans of the CAS. This year, as part ofthese deliberations, Committee members, and other CAS members,gazed into their crystal balls and engaged in some thoughtfulspeculation about the major news stories, from the perspective ofthe p-c insurance industry and its customers, that may occur in theyear 2005.

Perhaps all of these stories will not be on the Top Ten list of2005. Some may be on the list earlier, some later, and some never.But most of these stories will emerge in the near future.

Can you react to these developments in time to benefit from them?Remember, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed."

We hope this journey will allow you to launch some actions todaythat will save you from some hard lessons in 2005. To paraphraseGeorge Santayana (whose 1905 quote was, "Those who cannot rememberthe past are condemned to repeat it"), "Those who cannot learn fromthe future are condemned to muddle through it."

Please join us on this brief trip into the future.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property &Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, July 30, 2001.Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serialpublication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as anindependent work may be held by the author.

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