Dim the lights, turn on the projector, and cue the voiceover: "In a world gone mad, when everything was crumbling around them, one industry stood strong — INSURANCE!"

That could have been the preview for the disaster movie that was Florida's and the nation's economy in 2009.

As more than 1,000 attendees heard at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America's 2009 Annual Meeting in Orlando in late October, the property and casualty business successfully navigated difficult waters this past year. Despite the deepest recession of our lifetime, with unemployment broaching ten percent, plummeting consumer confidence, a credit crisis that impacted nearly every business, and a collapsed housing sector, insurance companies continued to operate the same way they did one year ago: Writing policies and paying claims without a federal bailout.