Markets

Specialty insurer Markel announced the creation of a three member office of the president with two executives assuming the title of co-chief operating officer.

Trade groups called on the Senate last week to reject an amendment to financial services reform legislation they charge would "substantially weaken" the ability of a proposed Office of National Insurance to address "critical" trade issues.

Joseph Peloso, a veteran of the program business segment, remembers a time when unsolicited program proposals flooded the desks of property and casualty underwriters, offering more business than they could possibly handle.

Practicing what they preach in terms of personal risk management, more than 96 percent of independent agents and brokers responding to a recent online survey said they carried errors and omissions insurance.

Reinsurers have not been especially disciplined, and they in fact prolonged a soft insurance market that should have ended a year ago, a broker said here yesterday.

Eight insurance industry trade groups have written the Senate urging it to reject an amendment they said would "substantially weaken" the proposed Office of National Insurance's authority to address international trade issues.

An Oregon senator is proposing an amendment to financial services legislation significantly limiting the Treasury Department's authority to negotiate international insurance trade agreements.

A dozen Bermuda reinsurers that released first-quarter 2010 earnings over the last week were hit hard by $1.4 billion in catastrophe losses, primarily related to the earthquake in Chile.