NU Online News Service, May 11, 2:14 p.m. EDT

Insurers are less inclined to use prior-year reserves to mask losses, according to a financial analyst's latest report.

Stifel Nicolaus' Meyer Shields says in a review of 52 publicly held insurance companies that aggregate quarterly loss reserve releases declined 17 percent from the same period last year. The report follows the analyst's fourth quarter observation that 2011 fourth-quarter loss-reserve development declined by 12 percent in 2011 over 2010.

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