| News News Archive  Email A Friend
April 22, 2024
California Division of Workers’ Compensation Posts Updated Time of Hire Notice April 22, 2024
Sullivan on Comp Launches ChatSOC. It's an Innovative Chatbot for California Workers' Compensation Professionals Integrated with an Authoritative Legal Treatise April 19, 2024
Workers Compensation Bill 2024: One percent of employee’s salary to contribute to workers’ compensation fund in Kenya. April 15, 2024
Colorado Worker Shows Head Injury Happened as a Consequence of a Knock on the Head at Work
| | Perceived Profits for Property Casualty Insurers?
By Robert Warne - September 27, 2002What a difference a year can make for property and casualty insurers. Recent financial results are beaming brighter than last year’s. But the glare has cast a shadow on the reality that despite the fruits of higher premiums, things aren’t that great yet.
For the first three months of 2002 the nation’s property and casualty insurers posted a combined $5.5 billion net profit, up by $260 million from the same period last year, according to Weiss Ratings.
State Farm, Liberty Mutual and St. Paul Fire & Marine rank among the top ten companies that enjoyed the largest year-over-year increase in net income.
“Property and casualty insurers quickly reversed last year's loss and seem positioned to return to profitable levels this year,” commented Melissa Gannon, vice president of Weiss Ratings.
But on the flipside of the good news, the Alliance of American Insurers (AAI), doesn’t want people to prematurely get too excited.
AAI President Rodger Lawson said, “Last year's first-half profit amounted to only 1.6 percent of premium and a very low rate of return of only 1.8 percent on an annualized basis. By comparison, 2002's profit equates to 2.3 percent of premium and an annualized rate of return of only 3.3 percent – still a very poor result historically.”
Roger Kenney, associate vice president of research for AAI, said that if catastrophic losses were the same as last year, the net income would have been less than what was reported in 2001.
Investment income is still lagging and because of unrealized capital losses, property and casualty surplus is at about $284 billion, which is lower than the surplus at year-end, 2001.
Of the $284 billion, commercial insurers only account for approximately $118 billion of the surplus.
In this classic glass is half full, half empty scenario, on an individual basis, there are many companies that were deep in the red last year and have since gained a significant amount of ground into the black this year. |
__May11th2017.gif)
.gif)