Ocean Marine Insurance Responds to Challenges

The U.S. Ocean Marine insurance industry has been hard hit by the economic crisis at a time when its structure, traditions and culture are facing challenges, according to a new study by Conning Research and Consulting.

"The Ocean Marine industry has deep foundations of tradition and specialization that give it unique status relative to other insurance segments. Over the past five years, the experienced specialist ocean marine writers have clearly outperformed the rest of the market," said Jerry Theodorou, analyst at Conning Research & Consulting. "But some larger companies have also outperformed by combining a specialist orientation with the resources of a larger carrier."

The Conning Research study, "Ocean Marine Insurance: Entering New Waters" analyzes the performance of the industry and presents the structural and cyclical challenges to the market. "The dramatic downturn in global trade in 2009 has jolted the Ocean Marine market at a time when it was struggling to sort out a number of challenges," said Stephan Christiansen, director of research at Conning. "Structural changes in available capacity, market consolidation, and changes in capital flows may require new approaches to sustain the business in today's marketplace. Our analysis points to the need to combine experience and specialization with greater scale and modern technical capabilities to navigate this new marketplace."

(www.conningresearch.com)