Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized the president’s debt plan, calling it campaign rhetoric, in a speech before an insurance agents’ group.

The value of insurance-linked securities placements increased by more than half in the first quarter of this year as four insurers placed more than $1 billion in bonds in the market, according to a report from Willis Group.

Opportunity is knocking for insurance agents seeking to bring new blood into their agencies. All they need to do is not follow the shortsighted discriminatory practices of which some employers are being accused.

New reports are supporting the notion that while the Japan earthquake and tsunami may not be enough to reverse the soft market, the impact of combined first-quarter catastrophes should improve pricing in some areas.

With plenty of capital still in the pipelines, no industrywide price increase is expected from Japan’s Tohoku earthquake—and any talk about a hard market is being greeted with skepticism, at least by one financial analyst.

Some analysts say a combination of factors is conspiring to make rate increases for both commercial and personal lines inevitable, possibly by the beginning of next year.

For the agents and brokers writing commercial-lines insurance for Main Street clients, business remains tough—but some tepid signs of improvement have begun, tentatively, to appear.

U.S. regulators are busy laying the foundation for modernizing solvency standards aimed at better understanding a carrier’s ability to withstand the stress of insured losses and making that reporting globally acceptable, experts say.