COMMERCIAL INSURANCE: What’s next? A hardening market with still-abundant capital means carriers will respond to the right risks By Joseph S. Harrington, CPCU At the start of 2020, much of the talk in commercial insurance seems to center on rate hikes and tightened underwriting in both property and liability lines. This apparent hardening of the market comes at a time when earnings have been hit by property catastrophes and growing
Specialty Lines
Specialty Lines Markets FOCUS ON CANNABIS INSURANCE Navigating the “thicket” of an emerging industry By Lori Widmer In 2014, the state of Colorado’s Amendment 64 took effect, legalizing personal use of marijuana. At the time, just a handful of insurers, mostly startup niche operations, were covering the growers, dispensaries and transport of the product. Because cannabis was (and still is) a federally illegal substance, many insurers were reluctant to invest
INSURING MUNICIPALITIES With know-how and experienced markets, agents can build a solid book in this thriving sector By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU In the years of the recession a decade or so ago, municipalities of all sizes and in every state were struggling to survive. Drastic budget cuts, layoffs, and curtailment of services were depressingly routine, and many entities settled for bare-bones, bargain-basement insurance coverage. Municipalities have emerged from the previous
CYBER RISK: A CAPTIVE APPROACH Smaller businesses—not just large corporate entities—can reap the benefits By Michael J. Moody, MBA, ARM Emerging risks have always been a challenge for the property and casualty insurance industry. Staying out in front of these new and evolving risks has proved problematic in the past. Take cyber risk as a case in point. Among the many difficult challenges are the lack of consistent coverage and
LEGAL CANNABIS: WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE’RE GOING The industry offers both challenges and opportunities By Patrick McManamon If you’ve been looking to target an industry that is emerging, exciting, and guaranteed to be around for the foreseeable future, the cannabis industry is a niche to consider. According to Gallup, 66% of U.S. adults supported marijuana legalization in 2019, compared to only 31% who supported it in 2001. Partly
