E&S/Specialty

Carriers and brokers selling Side-A directors and officers liability insurance coverage by delivering warnings about the increasing severity of shareholder derivative lawsuits may be overstating the trend.

Insurance trade groups are asking the House to reject proposed legislation that would end the antitrust exemption afforded health and medical malpractice insurers by the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

C.V. Starr & Company (California) announced that Michael Garrison, a senior vice president with another branch of the parent firm, has been appointed its president and chief executive officer.

Bermuda-based global specialty insurer Torus said it has named Carl Groth as group chief risk officer, a new position within the year-old company.

The annual consumer price index may have dropped 0.4 in 2009, but the costs of health care and legal services that impact insurers rose anywhere from 3 percent to 6 percent, said Insurance Information Institute.

Indiana's Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered his state's insurance department not to participate in a National Association of Insurance Commissioners climate risk survey, one official said.

House Democrats are planning a vote next week on legislation that would repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act anti-trust laws exemption for health care and medical malpractice insurers.

The revival of the New York Insurance Exchange will not have a huge impact on the insurance marketplace because the securities market is already filling the capacity needs of insurers, the Insurance Information Institute's president said.