Disaster losses, reserve charges, price pressure might make boom short-lived

The property-casualty insurance industry didn't just experience its best first-quarter underwriting result on record in 2005. The 91.9 first-quarter combined ratio was the best result for any quarter, period, according to the record-keepers.

In a joint announcement last week, the Jersey City-based Insurance Services Office and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America in Des Plaines, Ill., noted that their quarterly records only go back to 1986. Still, the result was one to savor and piggybacks on another record set in 2004, when the full-year combined ratio of 98.1 was the lowest since 1978.

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