Has anyone else heard rumblings that Liberty Mutual could be the next large mutual to face severe financial difficulties.
I also hear the CNA & Lowes ar having a very difficult time and that relationship could head for divorce court.
Liberty Mutual-prognosis
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GrtZucchini
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If you check their current rating at http://www.ambest.com you'll see it is now A. Not too long ago it was A+. Anytime a company's rating drops it is for a reason, usually not a very good sign. Exactly what their problem is is hard to tell without analyzing all their financials especially their reserves but it would be my guess their past exposures to pollution, asbestos, products liability,etc claims is catching up to them as it has to so many others in the PC business, especially the mutuals.
Elsewhere in this forum someone asks about Atlantic Mutual. When I last knew them 18 years ago when I retired they were a solid, conservative A+ company. Today Best has them at B++, a pretty shaky position to be in. I wouldn't be surprised that they may be next to bite the dust.
Following the upheaval in the mid eighties there has been a tremendous change in the casualty business. Many, many companies are gone - small and large. It would be interesting to find if someone has written a recent history of the industry and identified all the companies that failed to survive. In my opinion, it all goes back to when, I believe it was in the early 70's, the old National Bureau and Mutual Bureau agreed, under pressure from the large stock companies (who in turn were under pressure from the Alphabet brokers) to change the General Liability policy from an "accident" to an "occurrence" basis. the deluge of claims since then has left very few survivors.
Elsewhere in this forum someone asks about Atlantic Mutual. When I last knew them 18 years ago when I retired they were a solid, conservative A+ company. Today Best has them at B++, a pretty shaky position to be in. I wouldn't be surprised that they may be next to bite the dust.
Following the upheaval in the mid eighties there has been a tremendous change in the casualty business. Many, many companies are gone - small and large. It would be interesting to find if someone has written a recent history of the industry and identified all the companies that failed to survive. In my opinion, it all goes back to when, I believe it was in the early 70's, the old National Bureau and Mutual Bureau agreed, under pressure from the large stock companies (who in turn were under pressure from the Alphabet brokers) to change the General Liability policy from an "accident" to an "occurrence" basis. the deluge of claims since then has left very few survivors.
They are OK. I worked for them for five years. They fell to an A rating in 1993 and regained A+ in 1997. They probably will not fall below A unless we have another major catastrophe. It is true that they have some Asbestos problems from many years ago, however they are extemely solid. They could eliminate about 5000 jobs and fix some of their problems overnight.
Any Ideas on what they are doing with Golden Eagle Corp? I am a broker in San Diego with their appointment but have not been able to write much with them in the past year. They have been pretty wishy washy and have had a complete turn over in underwriting????