DAILY
NE WS
DAILY
NEWS MONDAY September 30, 2013
San Diego 2013
san diego, ca. www.naPslo.org
welcome continued on page 4 A
Welcome to
NAPSLO 2013
By MATT NICHOLS
Welcome to San Diego and the 2013 NAPSLO
Annual Convention. We’re
pleased to welcome more
than 3,500 surplus lines
professionals to this year’s
event, which marks a record
number of attendees. The
Convention Committee,
chaired by Kevin Westrope,
has scheduled a stellar lineup
of networking, social and
educational events. This
convention is the premier
surplus lines networking
opportunity of the year, and I hope
that you will take full advantage of
it for your business.
Tonight’s Opening Reception
will be held in the Marriott Hall on
the Lobby Level of the San Diego
Marriott Hotel beginning at 5: 30
p.m. This is a great way to kick off
the convention and I hope to see
Brokers’ Club Area have expanded
again this year, and the area con-
tinues to gain in popularity as it
provides dedicated meeting space
to help you get the most out of your
time here.
This year’s keynote address,
part of the E.G. Lassiter Lecture
surplus lines Market
Update: not Hard Yet,
but Firming
By DAVE LENCKUS
Non-admitted under- writers are seeking across-the-board rate hikes for property and
casualty risks—and are covering
more risks as standard lines insurers continue to shed unwanted
business. Yet the surplus lines
market has not entered the “hard”
phase of the market cycle.
Not even the massive insured
property catastrophe losses stemming from Superstorm Sandy last
fall could push the market into
truly hard conditions, market
executives say.
Instead, insurers are taking
measured steps to generate the revenue they believe they need to realize underwriting profits while not
unnerving buyers with the jarring
rate hikes and coverage restrictions
that have marked some previous
market turns.
Even so, some risks face rough-
er market conditions than others,
market executives note.
“It is interesting,” says Gary
Tiepelman, senior vice president-
contract underwriting at Scottsdale
Insurance Co. in Arizona. “It’s cer-
tainly not a hard market, but it is a
firming market.”
“To call it a hard market
is a bit of a stretch,” says Linc
Trimble, the Jersey City, N.J.-
based head of eCommerce at
Torus Insurance Holdings Ltd.,
which operates a U.S. surplus
lines insurer.
Wholesalers in much of the
country, meanwhile, are placing
risks more efficiently as a result
of the 2011 non-admitted market
reforms, executives say. But there is
still room for improvement.
The consensus that the surplus lines market is hardening is a
departure from market assessments
Market Update continued on page 6 A
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