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
Deleveraging of the insurance company's balance sheet. ...
Insurance that offers blanket coverage up to a certain dollar amount on all property of the classification covered by the policy. Floater policies, which cover property wherever it happens ...
Model state statute that governs terms for surrender of individual deferred annuities and cash value life insurance. This model, adopted by most states in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ...
Duration of a policy. Property and casualty coverages are usually written for one year, although a personal automobile policy can be for six months. Life insurance can be written on a term ...
Attachment to an insurance policy to complete its coverage. For example, the Standard Fire Policy must have certain forms attached for it to provide the coverage desired. ...
Same as term cash surrender value: money the policyowner is entitled to receive from the insurance company upon surrendering a life insurance policy with cash value. The sum is the cash ...
Same as term Maximum Foreseeable Loss: worst case scenario under which an estimate is made of the maximum dollar amount that can be lost if a catastrophe occurs such as a hurricane or ...
Policy clause that excludes coverage for loss of property if the cause of the loss cannot be identified. Mysterious disappearance is an exclusion in a standard inland marine insurance ...
Coverage for paintings, pictures, etchings, tapestries, art glass windows, antique furniture, coin collections, and stamp collections owned by individuals and businesses. These works are ...
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