2002 - First Nine Months Results

The property/casualty insurance industry reported a statutory rate of return of 4.4 percent during the first nine months of 2002, compared with the terrorism-impacted negative 1.2 percent during the same period in 2001. The results were released by the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) and the National Association of Independent Insurers (NAII). There’s plenty of good news to be found in the property/casualty insurance industry’s financial results for the first nine months of 2002, but the “perfect storm” that ravaged insurers’ balance sheets in 2001 clearly continues to rage in 2002. The results also seem to suggest that the hard market cannot end in 2003, at least if the industry expects to post reasonable rates of return by 2004.