Welcome to the Insurance Journal

In one sense we’re the new kid on the block, but in other ways we should be a familiar presence. The Insurance Journal has been around since 1923, the year it began publication as a local Southern California insurance magazine. Many of you also apparently know us from our Web site—yes, we do keep track of who looks at us—and there are a lot of you who certainly know the InsuranceTimes.

The magazine you’re holding contains them all, and we hope a good deal more. Our publisher, Mark Wells Jr., has been at the helm of the IJ since 1970, a long time in any business. He succeeded his father, Mark Wells Sr., who acquired the IJ in 1936. Under their leadership we’ve become the first source of information for property/casualty agents and brokers in the Western and South Central U.S. Now we can serve the agent/broker community nationwide.

Our biggest challenge is the East Coast. Not only because this region has more companies, more agents, more brokers and wields more influence over the insurance market, than any other region, but also because it’s extremely diverse. New York City could be a region all by itself; then there’s Connecticut and Massachusetts, home to some of the industry’s biggest companies. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. each have their own systems. More large corporations operate under the laws of Delaware than anywhere else. Vermont leads the nation in captive formations. Rhode Island and New Hampshire round out the list.

Can we reach our goal of giving the agents and brokers in these disparate locations the facts, the information, the news and the tips they need to conduct successful operations? Time will tell, but we certainly believe we can, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Having the InsuranceTimes Publisher Andy Simpson on our team will certainly help.

In addition to our national coverage, this inaugural issue features an interview with one of the industry’s most influential regulators, New York’s Superintendent of Insurance Gregory V. Serio, whom we were lucky enough to catch on a slow and snowy day in Manhattan. Andy gives you his thoughts on joining the IJ, and we took a look at the shifting fortunes of New Jersey’s auto insurance market six months after the enactment of an historic reform bill.

We hope you find the time to read the articles, and above all we hope you find them useful as well as interesting. Please let us know. The more you tell us, the more we can tell you. Visit our Web site at www.insurancejournal.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Topics New York Agencies