The mood was not so much somber as shell-shocked at last week's Property-Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum, as you might expect in the midst of the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression. But all things considered, the situation could be a lot worse for insurers, and they know it.

I got the sense that those attending what I consider to be the industry's annual family reunion were just happy to still be in business and employed, given the massive hits to their investment portfolios.

Speakers at the event tried to rally the troops–not with false hopes of a quick recovery, but with justifiable pride that insurers were better prepared to ride out the financial storm than their banking and securities peers.

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.