Reinsurers are increasingly questioning the sustainability of a good casualty claims environment, and their dimmer views of future profit margins on primary business are putting them at odds with potential cedents.

Although reinsurance prices were down for the June 1 renewals, one reinsurance executive recently speculated that price hikes in the insurance loss warranty (ILW) market

Retail brokers may start seeking larger cuts of the commissions paid out on surplus lines transactions as the soft market continues, a specialty lines insurance executive suggested recently.

Walmart may be the most frequent defendant named in wage-and-hour lawsuits, but insurers and pharmaceutical companies are also caught up in a maze of rules they did not know applied to certain subsets of their workforce, experts said.

Current market conditions may be the "new normal"--lasting for several years-- industry leaders predicted recently, with one attributing the continued softness to the absence of American International Group's historical price leadership.

Fear of wage-and-hour claims is escalating among buyers and sellers of employment practices liability insurance, with sellers' fears limiting EPLI solutions for small employers--and resulting in none at all for the largest ones, market participants report.

Proposed legislation denying tax deductions for reinsurance premiums paid to offshore affiliates will likely pass through Congress, a Bermuda executive predicted recently, but he criticized the measure as a restriction of free trade.

Recap of the types of coverage for wage-and-hour exposures that are currently available: