E&S/Specialty

In recent years, the specialty market for solo practitioner and small group lawyers professional liability--LPL--insurance has posted strong and stable financial results.

The gap between attractive prices being charged by incumbent directors and officers liability insurance carriers and higher premiums that have been charged by competitors in recent quarters has started to narrow.

Despite poor financial results, competition among insurers continued to be intense in the second quarter, but depletion of capital signals rising commercial insurance rates ahead.

Through these last six months, we've sat back and watched as major American companies, icons and brand-names like Washington Mutual, General Motors and Lehman Brothers, entered a downward spiral and filed bankruptcy.

Should employees dumped in mass layoffs have the right to sue CEOs for executive malpractice? That was the intriguing question raised in a recent episode of ABC's "Eli Stone."

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