E&S/Specialty

Chicago-based insurer CNA says net income for the 2011 second quarter dropped 55 percent, primarily on catastrophe losses.

Successful agencies find niches by leveraging knowledge in the E&S market

When your clients' top executives demand to know, "What the frack is going on," do you have an answer? Do you even know what they're talking about? Gina Jones and Ivy Riggs provide the info you need to arm youself to address your clients' concerns.

To compete in a marketplace flooded with competition, environmental insurance carriers to better stand out from the pack are developing new products—built on a growing familiarity with and sophisticated grasp of the unique coverage requirements of specific industry classes.

Bill Pritchard, president of Beacon Hill Associates Inc., a wholesale insurance broker and program administrator specializing in the placement of environmental insurance and other specialty products, provides his perspective on a number of crucial areas in the environmental-insurance market.

EnvISIon, a new rating system to assess the sustainability of infrastructure projects, is one initiative helping government and corporate risk managers benchmark sustainability performance and provide a framework for measuring risk—as environmental risk challenges threaten to surpass insurance capacity.