Wholesalers are currently seeing greater opportunities, but that is largely due to increased exposures from a recovering economy and standard carriers retreating from traditional excess and surplus lines risks rather than significant rate increases, says Burns & Wilcox CEO Alan Kaufman.
Kaufman did say B&W has seen rates increase a bit in certain lines, and he expects that to continue in 2014, but the continued retreat of standard carriers had more of an impact in 2013. “That's the reason why last year—2013—was an even greater opportunity for us. E&S wholesalers—many of them did better not because of rate, but because there was a little more business to write,” he says.
Property rates have increased a bit, says Kaufman, but not enough. He says rates surprisingly did not increase much in the New York area impacted by Superstorm Sandy, and states areas such as Houston remain more favorable from a carrier and broker perspective with respect to property rates. Kaufman attributes the limited rate movement in New York to competition for risks there as well as possibly a mindset that a loss event like Sandy was more of an anomaly than a new reality.
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