In the current economy, he said, contractors and manufacturers are suffering. Contractors don't have as much payroll as they had in the past; manufacturers don't have as many sales. "So exposure bases are dropping--and they might drop 20 or 25 percent," he reported, adding that his firm is seeing its renewal premiums fall also, but that the premiums are not dropping to the same extent as exposures.

That means rates are up for the book overall, he explained. "My underwriters are definitely looking at the exposure drops and reducing premiums, but they're trying not to reduce premiums at the same pace."

New business, however, is much softer. If business is "getting shopped, there are a lot of players out looking there for it, and prices fall quickly," he said. "I don't think you're getting the same rate on new business that you're achieving on renewals."

Mr. Greene said rate decreases for new umbrella business are anywhere in the 5-to-15 percent range, while his firm's renewal book is seeing rate increases of 5-to-7 percent.

Q: What about other lines, such as primary property, aviation or D&O?

A: "We normally work on larger accounts, and on those we have not seen any hardening of the marketplace."

Q: What are the biggest challenges your firm faces this year?

A: "One challenge is alternative markets--a lot of business is going to captives and pools."

"Until some of these captives have problems, or they have losses that increase their premiums to [levels] above what the standard markets are going to charge, we're going to continue to face that problem," Mr. Greene said.

Q: Are there any particular types of businesses being drawn to captives?

"A year ago, I probably would have said contractors, but now we're seeing [captives for] just about anything that's got size."

Q: What strategies does your firm have in place for surviving the soft market and the tougher economy?

A: "We look to continue to find niches where we can be successful," Mr. Greene said, noting, for example, that his firm has a very large play in the public entity arena.

In that segment, neither rates nor exposures are decreasing. "Schools still have the same number of students they had last year. Public entities have net operating expenditures that are usually within the same ballpark as they were the year before."

Mr. Greene also said his company seeks niche business that is program-oriented. "We're finding some producers throughout the country who have niche primary programs of their own, and we're becoming the umbrella facility for those. That's a very successful strategy for us."

Q: What does W.H. Greene do to set the firm apart from competitors?

A: "We're very well known as umbrella underwriters. That is our foot in the door. Because we are very capable, we have in-house authority. We control our own destiny in the umbrella arena. That helps us get other lines of business," Mr. Greene said.

"Why should they send the umbrella to us and the primary to somebody else when chances are very good that we're going to write the umbrella?"

Q: Your Web site indicates that you negotiate your own reinsurance. Is that unique?

A: "It is very unique," although it's more accurate to say that "we're very involved in the reinsurance placements for the companies we represent." As a result, "we're able to get much more authority and a larger underwriting box," Mr. Greene said.

Q: There have been many personnel changes among insurers this year. Does that impact your business? Do you have an allegiance to the carrier or the individual?

A: "We have a very strong allegiance to our companies, but insurance really is a people business. So when one of your underwriters or one of the top executives moves from one place to another, you can't help but talk to that person and try to help that person if you can," Mr. Greene said.

"It's difficult because you do want to help and you do have a relationship with that individual. So they do have a foot in the door and they have a good chance of getting a block of business from our office because they were the ones that helped us become successful in the first place."

Q: How does this soft market compare to prior ones? When do you expect to see a market turn this time around?

A: Mr. Greene didn't have any firm predictions, but he did offer observations.

"Every time we hit a soft market, it lasts for such a long time, and as it hardens up, it seems like it's over in a flash," he said.

He recalled once receiving a poster from one of his companies depicting two vultures sitting on a branch. "Vultures eat dead meat. They don't kill anything," he explained, going on to report that the poster showed one vulture telling the other he was tired of being patient. "I'm going to kill something," the vulture said.

Mr. Greene said, "That's sort of how things go in the insurance marketplace. The hard market lasts for such a short period of time, you do have to capitalize on it, but you certainly can't run your business as if that's going to be the constant."

"The constant is going to be a somewhat soft market. It's not going to be the pits of a soft market, but it's going to be somewhat soft," he said.

Over the last 30 years, "if I took all of the soft years and all the hard years, that teeter-totter would never move," he said.