IT WAS AN all-too-familiar announcement. Last month ACE Ltd. said it would kick up its loss reserves for asbestos and other environmental claims by $788 million. According to a Morgan Stanley analyst quoted in the Wall Street Journal, ACE's move was a signal that other carriers also would "be forced to top off" reserves for such claims.

I'm sure the analyst was right. For years now, insurers have been steadily adding to reserves in the so-far forlorn hope of catching up to their seemingly limitless potential liability for asbestos-despite the facts that the mineral has long been absent from most workplaces and that CGL policies haven't covered the exposure since the mid-1980s. While mesothelioma, the cancer that can result from prolonged exposure to asbestos, is all too real and certainly deserving of compensation, employers and their insurers have pointed out that a high percentage of the billions already paid out in asbestos claims have gone to people who have mild or even no symptoms. Indeed, plaintiff's attorneys have been known to conduct mass X-ray screenings in search of workers whose lungs may show evidence of scarring, regardless of whether they currently are in good health. Meanwhile, the genuinely ill sometimes have been left in the lurch.

A couple of years ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal noted that more than 200,000 asbestos claims were pending and that thousands more were being filed at triple the rate of prior years. Today, according to information posted at a Web site for a wholesale-distributor association, the number is up to 600,000. Web sites for the Risk & Insurance Management Society and The National Association of Mutual Insurance Cos. put the figure at more than 700,000 claims. The American Insurance Association recently said it topped 730,000. Whatever the precise count, I think it's safe to say it signifies an enormous and expanding problem. No wonder insurers have been clamoring for Congress to put a lid on it.