NEW YORK–On an accident-year basis, the property-casualty insurance industry as a whole is probably not making any money from underwriting, setting the stage for a market turn in 2010, an executive said here yesterday.

At a media briefing in New York, William R. Berkley, chair and chief executive officer of Greenwich, Conn.-based W.R. Berkley Corp., told reporters he believes the industry's underwriting results are either just at breakeven or that the industry is operating at a small underwriting loss for 2008.

“Fundamentally, we think the business will continue in a downward pricing mode through the first half of 2010,” Mr. Berkley said, predicting that more painful results of declining prices would start hitting the books for the industry in 2009.

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