NEW YORK--Irresponsible competition is the biggest risk facing the insurance industry, and Eliot Spitzer is a shoe-in to become New York's next governor, according to a recent poll of insurance industry leaders.

Roughly 100 executives from both the property-casualty and life sectors answered the survey at Standard & Poor's 23rd annual insurance conference, "Insurance 2006: Rethinking Risk," held in New York, with 36 percent citing irresponsible competition as the single biggest risk impacting the insurance industry.

In second place, natural catastrophes were the biggest risk concern for 29 percent of those polled on the multiple-choice question.

Ranked below the top two were regulatory risks (16 percent), terrorism (9 percent), rapidly rising interest rates (8 percent) and pandemics such as avian flu (2 percent).

The executives were less divided on their political predictions, with almost three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents responding to a yes/no question saying they believed Eliot Spitzer, New York's Democrat attorney general, would be successful in his run for governor of New York.

Asked what influenced their decision-making, 47 percent said they were most influenced by shareholders, while 27 percent said competition influenced them. Ratings agencies (17 percent) and regulators (9 percent) also were mentioned in the survey as influencers of decision-making.

"We intentionally left out policyholders as a choice," said Steven Dreyer, managing director of S&P, noting that that choice would have likely garnered 100 percent of the vote had it been presented.

No consensus emerged from the respondents for a final question asking what the executives thought would happen to insurance company returns over the next three years.

A decrease was predicted by 40 percent of the respondents, while 37 percent predicted an increase. The remainder, 23 percent, felt returns would remain about the same.

Special Reports /

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