At least that’s the call at Specialty Insurance Blog, citing National Underwriter.
It’s “about time” I guess. After all, the insurance industry can’t be profitable without marketing folks and brokers looking to steal someone else’s book. And triple-digit combined ratios can’t be that bad, right?
Well, I will admit that in some meetings or conference calls with a few of our businesses, it’s been easier to find “stupid competitor” stories to tell. One would hope that at least some participants in the industry would have learned their lessons by now, and will have the discipline to hold their ground on pricing and underwriting adequacy, even if it means strategically shrinking or temporarily exiting some markets.
Ah, but I have faith that many players in the industry will go chasing short-term boosts to the top line without paying attention to the long-term impact to the bottom of their income statements. P&C insurance is, after all, an industry where history seems doomed to repeat.