Mr. Fishman responded that what's occurring, rather than deals in which one carrier or an outside capital provider buys another, is a trend he calls "organic consolidation."

"There is a real flight to quality going on," he explained. "It's not dramatic [and] it's not happening terribly quickly, but it is happening."

The result of this flight, he predicted, may be that "you're going to end up with some 'organic consolidation,'" he said. In other words, "market share is going to move around."

Business is going to move "for the right reasons," he asserted, listing comfort with the financial capacity of carriers and confidence in the ability of carriers to service business over the long term as the key drivers.

The service issue is serious for agents and brokers, who are less concerned about the ability of struggling insurance companies to pay claims. "Everybody's pretty relaxed about that," he said.

"What they are not so relaxed about is who is going to be there to answer the phone in two, three or fours years [and] therefore can you provide appropriate service to your customer if you're an agent or broker."

Two other executives on the panel--Constantine "Dinos" Iordanou, president and CEO of Arch Capital Group, and Evan Greenberg, chair and CEO of ACE Limited, addressed Mr. Upton's question about merger trends, by revealing their disparate appetites for deals.

Mr. Iordanou said his firm has a bias toward building business "brick by brick" instead of acquiring, while Mr. Greenberg said ACE historically has pursued strategic acquisitions.

"We're only active in M&A when it furthers our growth strategy" in a particular area, but don't do deals simply "for the sake of size" or to engage in "financial gymnastics," Mr. Greenberg said.

Mr. Iordanou said, "We have a bias toward building organically--[by] finding teams and giving them a platform."

"I think the most critical component of any organization is the culture, [and] any time you do an M&A transaction, you are playing with the psyche of your organization," he said.

"It takes a long, long time to build an underwriting culture" and a service culture, Mr. Iordanou noted, explaining his preference for building "brick by brick or block by block and trying to get organic growth by attracting business [away] from...competitors for whatever reason."