When I look at today's insurance market I see a pretty dismal picture. Premiums are down as a result of the economy. Many insureds have laid off employees, cut payrolls, and seen decreases in production. Everyone wants to increase pricing, but they realize that if they do they will lose the account. After 41-plus years in the insurance business, I have to admit that I have never experienced a worse market. The best I can say is that retaining renewals is a bit easier now than it has been in the past two years, because prices have stabilized at the lower level. Let's hope we can at least continue to maintain and keep our renewal business.

When the economy finally starts going in the right direction (which could be soon), production will go up for our insureds, and market rates will go up for us. But until that happens, we will be lucky to keep a stable market.

One aspect of the economy that is down — and I mean really down — is housing. This is causing huge problems for individuals, for building contractors, and the entire construction industry, especially here in Florida. This, of course, impacts insurance.

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.