
From a catastrophe standpoint, the beginning of 2010 must have had more than a few U.S. insurers dreading the rest of the year as earthquakes and a serious winter storm in Europe brought calamity to far-off points of the world. However, the dire warnings of a fearsomely active hurricane season pretty much bypassed the United States, instead wreaking havoc on less developed nations where the insurance penetration was practically nonexistent.