Buyers Brace For Long Haul Conditions in the reinsurance market may have a trickle-down effect to commercial insurance buyers. But when National Underwriter contacted a group of buyer representatives about conditions in the reinsurance market and their implications recently, the activities of front-line insurance companies were also top of mind for these executives.

Michael R. Mead, president of M.R. Mead & Company LLC, a consulting intermediary in Chicago, said that finding coverage is still possible for insurance buyers. “But it's like a game of musical chairs in which about half of the chairs are gone,” he said. “There are some classes of business, such as doctors and hospitals, where it is almost impossible to get coverage.”

Organizations forming captives can still obtain reinsurance in London. “You may have to accept terms you don't like,” he noted, however. Dismissing that problem quickly, “the problem is fronting,” he went on to say. “For many people there is none,” he said, suggesting that this was more immediate and pressing issue for insurance buyers looking to get past hard market availability and insurance pricing problems with self-insurance and captive solutions.

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