Small Stories Can Have A Big Impact In my firstfew months as managing editor, Ive made some good calls aboutstories we should pursue for National Underwriter. But Ibet one we ran earlier this month had some readers, and maybe someof the folks I report to, scratching their heads.

Some might have asked why in the world we devoted space in theJune 2 edition to a report on the Canadian insurance market (see“Canadian P-C Insurers In Intensive Care?” on page 30). Inparticular, why should we care about a company in Ontario thatboosted auto insurance reserves by a mere $140 million?

I felt the very same way, a few weeks earlier, when a freelancereporter from Canada called to pitch a story about a company calledPilot, a subsidiary of Aviva, which booted its CEO and otherexecutives after announcing the reserve charge. He kept using wordslike “scandal” and “shenanigans” in his voice mail pitch, as hetried to give me a scoop, apparently believing that I hadnt heard aword about the situation before.