| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : FEBRUARY 22, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| INTERNATIONAL -- READERS REPORT
Technology Is Turning Insurance on Its Head (int'l edition) ''Insurance: Prognosis 1999,'' (Outlook 99: America's key industries, Jan. 11) labeled insurance as ''flush with capital and nothing else going for it.'' Not surprisingly, the technology used by property and casualty underwriters generally outdates Christopher Columbus' explorations. A few years ago, when the commercial-premiums cycle was sky high, insurance actuaries projected a ''reasonable profit.'' Now, with radically reduced rates, they project nearly the same results, except there is less to ''hide and invest'' from excessive reserves that have historically built insurance empires. Technology has been developed that unquestionably challenges the insurance industry's premise for ''random occurrence of fortuitous loss.'' These losses should now be labeled as humanly created circumstances that can be avoided. This would reduce premiums, because unnecessary risk would not be borne and insured by business. The premiums from these groups of risk should not be labeled as ''expected losses'' with ridiculously low levels of retention that favor insurance actuaries in the calculations. ''Flat earth'' believers didn't like Galileo, and the insurance industry won't accept advanced-tech systems until forced to do so. Charles W. Olsen President & CEO ARCS International Inc. Scottsdale, Ariz. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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