Declarations

Overblown Uncertainty

“Greece has the economy of somewhere like Alabama. I think the high degree of uncertainty coming out of Europe is overblown.”

—Insurance Information Institute President and Chief Economist Robert Hartwig. During his talk at the annual Professional Liability Underwriting Society Conference in San Diego in early November, Hartwig pointed out that Greece’s economy is the 32nd largest in the world. By comparison, if California were a nation, its economy would rank 8th in the world.

An Unseen Statistic

“One statistic I’d like to see that no one has kept is, how much I’ve paid out in auto insurance in the past 25 years and how much I’ve collected. The insurance company didn’t get the perfect driver when they got me but they haven’t done badly. I guess we’ve paid out a total of more than $20,000 and I doubt if they’ve paid out $2,000, mostly in dents.”

—The late Andy Rooney, who recently passed away after working as a curmudgeonly commentator on CBS “60 Minutes” for more than 30 years, in his last book titled “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit.” On camera, he often expressed his frustrations with everyday subjects, and paying for insurance was no exception.

Historic Cat Loss

“The catastrophe loss activity was historic.”

—Commenting on significant losses from catastrophic events this year, Bob Restrepo, president, chairman and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Financial Corp., said 2011 “has been a difficult year” for the company. State Auto reported a third quarter 2011 net loss of $58.7 million and a combined ratio for the third quarter 2011 of 122.4 versus 105.9 for the same period in 2010. Catastrophe losses for the third quarter 2011 accounted for 17.0 points of the total 88.4 loss ratio points.