For the first six months of 2005, net income increased 17 percent, or $12 million, going from $69 million, or 99 cents a share, to $80 million, or $1.15 a share. Revenues for the first half of the year rose 23 percent, or $75 million, going from $324 million to $398 million.

Looking at the insurance markets, Mr. Brown said there are capacity problems in Florida when it comes to writing property insurance, but for non-coastal properties prices for the line are flat or down as much as 10 percent.

He said among those who are willing to write insurance pricing is up 10-to-15 percent for coastal properties.

He warned that three counties in Florida with hurricane exposure--Dade, Broward and Palm Beach--could suffer a fourth-quarter shortage of insurers willing to write property coverage.

The rest of the country continues to see price reductions in the 10-to-20 percent range, according to Mr. Brown. He said most price competition comes from regional insurers who do not have legacy issues such as asbestos.

He said California workers' compensation continues to see rate declines as more companies enter the state since reforms were passed a year ago.

However, he said he did not see a return to the soft California market of the late 1980's and 1990's, noting that national companies continue to hold the line on pricing while the industry itself still needs to deal with inadequate reserves.

"I think we will see plateaus in pricing as companies look at their combined ratios," he said, adding that the competition does not appear to be "predatory" as it has in the past.

On the issue of contingency fee investigations by individual states, he said the firm received inquiries from 18 states since the investigations began last year. He said the firm has not received any requests for any additional information and investigators have "been silent" since the requests.

When asked about complying with the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act disclosure requirements and investigations of price-fixing in commercial insurance sales, Mr. Brown said the company is "better off than we were" as a consequence.

He said they have made the firm a tighter-run operation, and he expects the costs from complying with the accounting disclosure act will begin to come down this year.