Underwriting Cycle
Tendency of property and liability insurance premiums, insurers' profits, and availability of coverage to rise and fall with some regularity over time. A cycle can be said to begin when insurers tighten their underwriting standards and sharply raise premiums after a period of severe underwriting losses. Stricter standards and higher premium rates often bring dramatic increases in profits, attracting more capital to the insurance industry and raising underwriting capacity. On the other hand, as insurers strive to write more premiums at higher levels of profitability, premium rates may be driven down and underwriting standards relaxed in the competition for new business. Profits may erode and then turn into losses if more tax underwriting standards generate mounting claims. The stage would then be set for the cycle to begin again.
Popular Insurance Terms
Means of funding permitted under the employee retirement income security act of 1974 (ERISA). The administrator of a pension plan can comply with required minimum funding standards by ...
Search, attraction, interview, and employment of insurance agents. This is a primary function of the general agent (GA) or agency manager. ...
Amount in a cash value life insurance policy that a policy owner will receive upon surrender of the policy, minus any outstanding loan and accrued interest. A table in the policy shows the ...
Coverage providing funds for maintenance of a business as closely to normal as possible in the event of a loss of a key person, owner, or partner. ...
Excess funds above the amount required to establish legal reserves for the policies in force. These excess funds are generated as the result of mortality savings, excess interest earned on ...
Same as term Unallocated Funding Instrument: pension funding agreement under which funds paid into a retirement plan are not currently allocated to purchase retirement benefits. The funds ...
Costs associated with the selling of a new insurance policy to a policyholder. The costs include the acquisition commission as a percentage of the first year's premium, underwriting ...
Insurance policy in force only after the insurance company approves the application. Today, most companies use the insurability conditional premium receipt. ...
Nonforfeiture option that uses the cash value of an ordinary life policy as a single premium to purchase term life insurance in the amount of the original policy. The length of the term ...
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