Commercial Insurance for Dr. Perkins: Home

From The Merritt Insurance Manuals. Detailed technical analysis of standard commercial insurance policy forms and information on underwriting, rating formulas and claims processing tips.

From The Merritt Insurance Manuals. Detailed technical analysis of standard commercial insurance policy forms and information on underwriting, rating formulas and claims processing tips.

The Economics of Property-Casualty Insurance presents new research and findings on key aspects of the economics of the property-casualty insurance industry. The volume explores the industrial organization, regulation, financing, and taxation of this business. The first paper, on external financing and insurance cycles, contains a wealth of information on trends and patterns in the industry's financial structure. The last essay, which compares performance of stock and mutual insurance companies, takes a fresh look at the way a company's organizational structure affects its responses to different economic situations. Two papers focus on rate regulation in the auto insurance industry, and provide broad overviews of the structure and economics of the insurance industry as a whole. Also addressed are the system of regulating insurance companies in the United States, who insures the insurers, and the effects of tax law changes in the 1980s on the prices of insurance policies.

Protect your company's finances in the event of a disaster  In the face of an environmental or man-made disaster, it's imperative to have a contingency plan that's mapped out your corporation's strategy to minimize the impact on the daily functions or life of the corporation. Successful planning not only can limit the damage of an unforeseen disaster but also can minimize daily mishaps--such as the mistaken deletion of files--and increase a business's overall efficiency. Faster Disaster Recovery provides a 10-step approach for business owners on creating a disaster recovery plan (from both natural and man-made events). Each chapter ends with thought-provoking questions that allow business owners to explore their particular situation. Covers natural events such as earthquakes and floods Provides guidance on dealing with man-made events such as terrorist attacks Offers worksheets to make your contingency plans Includes several examples throughout the book There's no time like the present to develop a business contingency plan--and this book shows you how. 

Is it possible that the insurance and reinsurance industries cannot handle a major catastrophe? Ten years ago, the notion that the overall cost of a single catastrophic event might exceed $10 billion was unthinkable. With ever increasing property-casualty risks and unabated growth in hazard-prone areas, insurers and reinsurers now envision the possibility of disaster losses of $50 to $100 billion in the United States. Against this backdrop, the capitalization of the insurance and reinsurance industries has become a crucial concern. While it remains unlikely that a single event might entirely bankrupt these industries, a big catastrophe could place firms under severe stress, jeopardizing both policy holders and investors and causing profound ripple effects throughout the U.S. economy. The Financing of Catastrophe Risk assembles an impressive roster of experts from academia and industry to explore the disturbing yet realistic assumption that a large catastrophic event is inevitable. The essays offer tangible means of both reassessing and raising the level of preparedness throughout the insurance and reinsurance industries.

" Over the past two decades, the United States has successfully deregulated prices and restrictions on most previously-regulated industries, including airlines, trucking, railroads, telecommunications, and banking. Only a few industries remain regulated, the largest being the property-liability insurance business. In light of recent sweeping financial modernization legislation in other sectors of the insurance industry, this timely volume examines the basis for continued regulation of rates and forms of the U.S. property-liability insurance market. The book focuses on private passenger automobile insurance--the most important personal line of property-liability coverage, with annual premiums of about $120 billion. The authors analyze five state case studies: California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey--three of the most heavily regulated states--as well as Illinois, which has been deregulated for about 30 years, and South Carolina, which began to deregulate in 1997. The study also includes an econometric analysis based on all fifty states over a 25-year period that gauges the impact of regulation on insurance price levels, price volatility, and the proportion of automobiles insured in residual markets. The authors conclude that regulation does not significantly reduce long-run prices for consumers, and generally limits availability of coverage, reduces the quality and variety of services available in the market, inhibits productivity growth, and increases price volatility. Contributors include Dwight Jaffee (University of California, Berkeley), Thomas Russell (Santa Clara University ), Laureen Regan (Temple University), Sharon Tennyson (Cornell University), Mary Weiss (Temple University), John Worrall (Rutgers University), Stephen D'Arcy (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Martin Grace (Georgia State University), Robert Klein (Georgia State University), Richard Phillips (Georgia State University), Georges Dionne (University of Montreal), and Richard Butler (Brigham Young University). "