The property-casualty insurance industry posted its first annual decline in net written premiums last year–evidence of a softening market that cut into, yet fell far short of wiping out insurer profit margins–the sector's quarterly consolidated results report revealed.

Insurers as a group saw net written premiums fall 0.6 percent in 2007 to $440.8 billion–quite a difference from the 4.2 percent growth rate for 2006. Net earned premiums edged up to $439.1 billion last year, growing just 0.8 percent compared to the 4.3 percent gain a year earlier.

For 2007, after-tax net income dropped 5.8 percent to $61.9 billion, down from $65.8 billion in 2006, due to slippage in underwriting results, according to a report by the Insurance Services Office in Jersey City, N.J., and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America in Des Plaines, Ill.

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