A View from the Press Box

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve relaunched the National Underwriter Web site under a new URL–www.Property-Casualty.com–complete with enhanced, multimedia options designed to give readers more opportunities to access our content and offer feedback on the news of the day. (more…)

Insurance regulators are charged with making personal lines insurance widely available. Nothing has undermined the industry’s image more over the years than the battles between regulators and carriers over the availability and affordability of auto and homeowners insurance. The question is, are carriers and their producers ethically required to assist in this effort? What are the ethical responsibilities of insurers and their agents and brokers, if any, with regard to providing insurance to all who approach them for personal lines coverage? Click on to respond. (more…)

The market has been buzzing about AIG’s commercial insurers allegedly underpricing their coverage beyond all sound judgment to overcome the reputational damage done by their corporate parent’s federal bailout. But two government representatives gave the carrier a clean bill of health of sorts, chalking up any premium declines to old-fashioned competition. Did they miss the boat? (more…)

Earlier this year, I reported that the president of a major carrier casually noted that he did not buy personal lines coverage from his own company for fear of raising ethical conflicts. Our regular ethics columnist, Peter R. Kensicki–queried NU readers on what they thought, prompting one of our biggest responses. Click on to read what your colleagues make of this conundrum, and feel free to weigh in with additional comments. (more…)

While everyone and their grandmother was getting in a lather about AIG paying $165 million in retention bonuses to its notorious Financial Products unit, there wasn’t nearly enough attention paid to the $120 billion channeled by the beleaguered company to make good on all its reckless derivatives trading.  But one high-profile gadfly said this is where attention should be focused. (more…)

With its insistence that $165 million in retention bonuses must be paid, American International Group, while trying to conduct business as usual, is seemingly oblivious to the fact that as the poster child for the corporate bailout generation, every step it takes to reward those who got the company into trouble in the first place undermines public support for its federal rescue and puts its long-term future in grave risk.

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Just as President Barack Obama got his health care reform initiative started, a key point of controversy during his campaign against Sen. John McCain reared its ugly head–the notion that employer-paid coverage should no longer be tax-exempt. That’s bound to create a political backlash with voters, and it might prompt wider support for a single-payer system.

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Alex Rodriguez isn’t the only one with a major image problem on his hands. American International Group is also seeing its reputation go down the tubes, thanks to reckless credit default swap trading by its Financial Products unit, forcing the company to rely on mounting federal funds to stay afloat. Can AIG’s innocent and financially-sound insurers distance themselves from their parent’s toxic brand?

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With a series of studies showing that way too many Americans are clueless when it comes to the financial basics of day-to-day living, it’s no wonder hardly anyone understands insurance, let alone appreciates how much value the industry offers to this blissfully ignorant society.

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At a time when business titans are being dismissed as the dumbest guys in the room, one icon–Warren Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway–has not been afraid to speak out optimistically about the future of the economy in general and the insurance business in particular.

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