Mr. Biancardi went on to say that the terrorism take-up rate was "quite high" at 65 percent.

On financial programs insurance, he said, "We are seeing some future signs of hardening, but currently, it still is a relatively soft market."

He said directors & officers is renewing flat to as high as 15 percent reductions; errors and omissions and bond is flat to 10 percent.

"Rates are being determined more by loss experience for the individual risk" and the ability to differentiate "one risk from its peers." He added that type of financial institution, whether it is a bank or mutual fund, also plays a part in determining the rate.

Casualty also is "in a changing phase," but the full impact of this past season's hurricanes have not been felt.

General liability, accident liability and workers' compensation along with umbrella and excess are flat to 5 percent reduction.

Pricing of these coverages, along with property insurance would be affected by passage of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, Mr. Biancardi said.

Ben Tucker, a member of Marsh's terrorism risk specialty practice, said passage of TRIA with the higher limits would mean some clients may have to turn to the stand-alone market to purchase coverage for the gap in the program (TRIA had not yet been passed at the time of the broadcast). He noted that this would be the case no matter what version of the bill was approved by Congress.

Mr. Tucker called the Senate version (which did pass) a short-term resolution that would allow the industry to "hopefully" continue to work on developing its own pooling solutions.

Mr. Tucker underscored that for Marsh's financial institution clients, terrorism insurance is very important with more than 80 percent in 2005 purchasing either TRIA or stand-alone-coverage--the highest of any sector. He added that the stand-alone market has "a theoretical maximum capacity" of $1.4 billion.

The principal primary carriers for this coverage are American International Group and Lloyd's, and the main excess markets are Axis Specialty, Montpelier and Berkshire Hathaway.

Currently, however, there is not enough capacity in the stand-alone to cover demand, and it only serves today to cover excess demand, he noted.

"Stand-alone coverage is not identical to TRIA coverage," Mr. Tucker said, pointing out the limited markets and property-specific nature of the policies. Policies can be tailored to layer coverage between TRIA and stand-alone to cover a client's risk needs.

Arthur Koritzinsky, a member of Marsh Alternative Risk Solutions Group, noted that there are significant opportunities for captive insurers to secure their terrorism risk under TRIA. He explained that a number of captives have expanded their programs to cover nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism risk not covered by TRIA.

He said there will probably be even more growth in captives to cover the terrorism risk exposure under TRIA over the next two years. Some captives, he said, may purchase more reinsurance to take care of co-insurance and larger deductibles.