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
Background information used in life and health insurance underwriting to ascertain the probability of hereditary disease. The purpose is to determine if the disease is of such a nature that ...
Theory developed in 1931 by H. W. Heinrich; states that an accident is only one of a series of factors, each of which depends on a previous factor in the following manner: accident causes ...
Option to an insurance company to replace, reconstruct (repair), or reproduce (rebuild) damaged or destroyed property covered by property insurance rather than indemnify an insured in cash. ...
Written form which has precisely the same terms as the other property insurance policies covering a particular property. ...
Total limit on the amount of coverage an insurer will underwrite on an individual risk. The amount underwritten includes the amount to be ceded through a reinsurance agreement. ...
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Same as term Contract Holder: in insurance, individual with rightful possession of an insurance policy, usually the policyowner. ...
Death caused by a person without legal justification. Wrongful death may be the result of negligence, such as when a drunken driver hits and kills someone; or it may be intentional, as when ...
Pension plan format. After deciding how much to contribute, the employer can suspend, reduce, or discontinue contributions during the first 10 years only for reasons of business necessity; ...
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