Subprime propaganda

Greg Flood is on a concerted campaign to reverse the soft market. Today Advisen Front Page News carried an article by AM Best in which the Ironshore underwriter explains the magnitude of the claims from subprime on the D&O and E&O markets. See the story here.

Last week Greg was quoted in Post magazine (story here) talking about how he sees insured loss from subprime surpassing $8b.

IronPro is new to the market, is well-rated, and doesn't have legacy subprime exposure to force high reserves. In other words, Greg has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time and apparently he believes the time is now:

“We’re taking excess layers that are very high. We’re looking to reestablish
insurance for companies that are looking to get it.”

Chalk this up as another indicator of the bottom, the end of the soft market, at least for the specific buying of D&O and E&O for Financial Institutions. Greg says his competitors are seeing 30-40% increases in D&O and he wants in. Data from the RIMS Benchmark Survey and from retail and wholesale brokers do not show this type of increase, but we won't be surprised if the next batch of renewals did.