Property-casualty insurers improving reserve levels in the past year could be threatened by a softening pricing environment, according to a new Standard & Poor's report.
"Underwriting discipline has improved since the late 1990s, when insurers grossly underpriced to gain market share and relied on investment income to sustain financial strength," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Siddhartha Ghosh. "That, coupled with a harder market, has yielded high profitability and lower-than-expected loss levels."
The industry's overall reserve position improved substantially in 2005, compared with the preceding three years (2002-2004).
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