E&S/Specialty

With high-profile cases such as ChoicePoint and TJX acting as a lure, plaintiffs' attorneys are increasingly interested in generating class-action lawsuits for data security breaches.

Professional liability brokers repeatedly receive requests from policyholders to add the buyer's clients onto errors and omissions policies as additional insureds.

Although making acquisitions is a prudent strategy for forward-thinking surplus lines insurance executives seeking to build their organizations, potential sellers are unlikely to agree to lower the deal prices offered, experts recently warned.

"Going green" has become a popular catch phrase. This phenomenon is fueled by the current administration, and the agenda is clear.

Conventional wisdom would say that the time to start a wholesale business is not in the middle of a soft market, when the demand for that business suffers.

It will take guts for executives of excess and surplus lines carriers to get through 2010, especially those who head up publicly traded operations, experts said at an investment analysts' conference recently.

Rules for disclosure of compensation arrangements between insurance brokers and surplus lines insurers are ill defined, according to an industry trade group representative.

GuideOne Insurance, a West Des Moines-based carrier that insures churches, private schools and colleges as well as senior living communities, has announced three executive changes.