Organizations and individuals routinely modify their views of the world, their perceptions, and their actions based on the news stories of the day. For the property-casualty insurance industry, significant events in the general insurance or business environment create issues that insurers must address.

By necessity, of course, this dynamic means responding to yesterdays news. But how might we modify our perceptions and actions if, in addition to knowing yesterdays news, we knew tomorrows news?

Through the wonders of actuarial time travel, we have obtained an edition of the National Underwriter from five years hence, including articles summarizing the Top Ten News Stories of 2005, as viewed from the perspective of the p-c insurance industry. With each of the top stories, the editors-of-the-future offer a brief analysis of the important implications for insurers.

With some editorial adjustments to translate 2006 lingo into todays vernacular, we are "pre-printing" the articles so that readers may consider the implications for their own companies.

Each year, the Long Range Planning Committee of the Casualty Actuarial Society considers various long-term trends that may affect the strategies and plans of the CAS. This year, as part of these deliberations, Committee members, and other CAS members, gazed into their crystal balls and engaged in some thoughtful speculation about the major news stories, from the perspective of the p-c insurance industry and its customers, that may occur in the year 2005.

Perhaps all of these stories will not be on the Top Ten list of 2005. Some may be on the list earlier, some later, and some never. But most of these stories will emerge in the near future.

Can you react to these developments in time to benefit from them? Remember, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed."

We hope this journey will allow you to launch some actions today that will save you from some hard lessons in 2005. To paraphrase George Santayana (whose 1905 quote was, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"), "Those who cannot learn from the future are condemned to muddle through it."

Please join us on this brief trip into the future.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, July 30, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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