Richard Kerr, CEO of MarketScout, is a shameless tease! In commenting on his firm's latest Market Barometer survey, he asserted “there are still three large, admitted, publicly-traded insurers clamoring for premium, seemingly at any rate and continuing to prolong the soft market.” But he refuses to name the three stooges! Can you guess who they might be?

You've got to figure that one of the three is AIG (or AIU, or whatever it is they decide to call themselves), although the company is vehemently denying they are quoting deep discounts or selling more coverage for the same price to compensate for the damage to their reputation done by their corporate parent's reckless trading of credit default swaps and subsequent federal bailout.

But who else could Mr. Kerr be talking about, and why won't he just come out and name the three keeping prices soft despite the fact that “every sensible economic indicator tells us rates should be increasing…”?