NU Online News Service, Oct. 8, 11:00 a.m. EDT

With layoffs and lower sales volume decreasing demand for insurance coverage, the recession continues to deeply depress renewal rates for property and casualty insurance programs, according to the RIMS Benchmark Survey.

The survey, administered by Advisen Ltd. on behalf of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, tracks changes in insurance policy renewal prices as reported by North American corporate risk managers.

According to the survey, commercial insurance buyers are benefitting from low prices due in part to the global economic recession, which has suppressed demand for insurance capacity, prompting underwriters to compete for diminishing premium dollars.

"It's a buyers' market--shouldn't be, but it is," Dave Bradford, Advisen executive vice president and editor-in-chief of the survey, told the NU Online News Service. "It doesn't look like it's going to change any time in the near future."

However, he said the soft market is definitely bottoming out at this point, particularly in terms of rate decreases as opposed to premium decreases. "It's getting towards the bottom of the market, it just hasn't started to rebound yet."

He observed that although there may be price changes in 2010, they won't be sudden, but gradual, "when things will start to inch back up."

The exception, he said, would be if a large catastrophe hits, which "changes everything, of course. The market could go very hard, very quickly."

Mr. Bradford added that a benefit to risk managers is that the recession is "tamping down demand for insurance, which is keeping the pressure on underwriters to keep prices down."

As the economy begins to improve, he said, "that will change somewhat--demand will start to increase. By all the financial forecasts, sales and payrolls probably won't improve very much in 2010."

He noted that demand for coverage has decreased as companies have gone out of business, laid off employees and seen their sales drop. "Any general liability premiums will be calculated on sales--those could be lower," he said.

While insurers have bounced back from a bad first quarter, "their results are still pretty grim," Mr. Bradford said in a statement. "Carriers are posting underwriting losses, but in this recession, they have found it nearly impossible to push through rate increases except in a few especially distressed areas."

Property insurance policies renewed in the third quarter with essentially no change in average premium, the survey found.

Directors and officers liability policies also renewed with no change in average premium, though the D&O market remains divided between the financial institution segment (which was pummeled by the subprime mortgage market meltdown and has seen premiums rise) versus the rest of the market (which still is seeing premiums drift lower), the RIMS survey showed.

The average general liability premium fell 3.7 percent and the average workers' compensation premium was down 4.5 percent, according to the survey. Contributing to lower general liability and workers' comp average premiums were declining sales and payrolls, which are used to calculate premiums.

"It's still a buyers' market, and it looks as if it may stay that way for awhile," agreed Daniel H. Kugler, a member of the RIMS board of directors and assistant treasurer, risk management, at Snap-on, Inc. "Under normal circumstances, premiums should be rising by now."

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