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Avg. Renewal

Flat In February

There was no change in the average property-casualty commercial policy rate last monththe first time the MarketScout barometer hit zero since the Dallas-based online insurance exchange started keeping track of composite rates in July 2001.

MarketScout found a slight rise in general liability and excess coverage for tougher classes such as product liability. Habitation and energy accounts continue to suffer the highest premium hikes. Directors and officers liability premiums continued to decline modestly, and workers' comp rates are falling as well. In general, the bigger the account, the more aggressive the rate cut on average, MarketScout found.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, March 10, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.