Brown & Brown reported 2005 fourth-quarter net income increased 18 percent despite challenges from a difficult hurricane season. Management said for this year there is an uncertain pricing picture.

The increase in fourth-quarter net income was $5.5 million rising from $30.3 million, or 22 cents a share in the 2004 period, to $35.7 million, or 25 cents a share. Revenues increased 21 percent, or $34 million, from $163 million to $197 million.

For the year, net income increased 17 percent, or $22 million, from $129 million, or 93 cents a share, to $151 million, or $1.08 a share. Revenues increased 22 percent, or $139 million, from $647 million to $786 million.

Brown & Brown said this was the 13th consecutive year where it reported growth in both revenue and net income.

In an analyst's conference call today, J. Hyatt Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of the Daytona Beach, Fla.-based insurance brokerage firm, summed up the firm's results saying, "There is one thing we know how to do and that is make money."

On the market generally, he said, "It has been a very, very strange quarter in Florida."

He said admitted carriers are not sure what direction they want to go with their business and this is affecting renewals because underwriters are waiting for decisions from their home office that are not coming.

The result, said Mr. Brown, is extensions in some policies where the desire is to keep the business with the current carrier. The situation is especially acute for coastal placements, he added. More and more business is moving into the nonadmitted market, he added.

Mr. Brown said it could be another six months before many questions are resolved as insurers settle their reinsurance market placements.

"A lot of company's do not know their game plan," commented Jim W. Henderson, president and chief operating officer. "It's unusual and not reflective of things to come."

Outside of Florida, business along the Gulf Coast is seeing a lot of movement into the excess and surplus lines market with significant increases in some cases, Mr. Brown said, but the rest of the country is flat to down.

Under the current climate, future business prospects are hard to predict, he said. Because of this, Mr. Brown said the firm was issuing an organic growth forecast between zero and 5 percent.

On the issue of contingent commissions, Mr. Brown downplayed American International Group's announcement that it was discontinuing the payments.

"They never paid contingents," he said. "They never did, so I don't know what that means."

He said they may have had a few side deals, but it was AIG's practice not to pay them.

AIG yesterday announced a $1.6 billion settlement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other regulators that includes an agreement to drop contingent commission payments on some lines. Commission arrangements were part of bid-rigging activity, Mr. Spitzer has charged.

Mr. Brown once again defended the payment of profit-based contingent commissions, which he said forces producers to take the risk management initiative and make sure good risks are placed with carriers.

Volume-based contingent commissions have been at the center of a kick-back and bid-rigging scandal that has rocked the industry and forced the four biggest insurance brokerage firms to abandon taking all forms of the commissions.

Carriers are not about to give up paying the commissions, Mr. Brown said, noting that regional insurers are waiting for national insurers to stop making the payments to give them a competitive advantage with independent producers.

"Volume-based contingents are different from profit-sharing commissions," said Mr. Brown, "and [the volume-based contingents] should continue."

Special Reports /

Brown 27% Brown Net Up 18% In Quarter

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