If one could use only a single word to sum up 2011, catastrophes best captures what this year was all about.

Enterprise risk management continued to move more toward the mainstream in Corporate America this year, with its implementation being driven by anxious boards and by CEOs more acutely aware than ever of the need to understand and mitigate existential threats.

Ending a five-month, multiparty bidding warwith Warren Buffett as one of the belligerentsinvestment holding company Alleghany Corp. recently reached a deal whereby reinsurer Transatlantic would become its independent subsidiary in a $3.4 billion deal.

The health-care reform law is not scheduled to take effect in 2016, but questions and impact of the law is already hitting some employee-benefit agency programs.

With 2012 about to arrive, NU spoke with some of the key figures in the E&S/Specialty Markets arena to hear their assessments of where the biggest opportunities will be found in the year aheadand to get their take on the greatest challenges that will have to be faced over the...

Times are tough for the American worker, whether at the office or on the assembly lineand conditions are at least equally challenged for those underwriters that offer workers compensation insurance to the countrys employers.

Two steps forward, one step back: For every couple of events that augured a definitive swing to a hard market this yeara major catastrophe here, increasing combined ratios theresome other factor contributed to helping keep prices soft, whether it was fear over the eurozone debt crisis or underwriters willing to...

Mobile apps from indie agents. Real-time processingnot only of personal-lines business, but also of midsize commercial accounts. Social media as a marketing essential. Cloud computing. The past 12 months saw a number of game-changing tech trends that are rapidly altering how agents and brokers do business.