With a soft market making it more difficult to compete, and the economy contracting, it was only a matter of time before consolidation started heating up in the property-casualty industry, and 2008 saw more than its share of major deals.

For one, there was Liberty Mutual's purchase of Safeco, announced in April, with a $6.2 billion price tag. Safeco became part of Liberty's Agency Markets unit, with the combined entity represented by some 15,000 independent agents nationwide.

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.