Find Markets,
Get Quotes

Simply search by coverage or keyword and find the market you are looking for in seconds.

ProgramBusiness Banner Image

This Week's Featured Markets

Stay Up To Date on New Markets

Stay Up To Date on New Markets

Get alerts to your inbox on new and trending markets each week.

=

Connecting People with Insurance Problems to People with Insurance Solutions

Whether you are a Carrier, MGA, Wholesale, Retail Agent, or Broker, we have a solution for you. Leverage our platform to streamline your processes and grow your business.

Looking For Market Distribution?

ProgramBusiness for Carriers, MGA’s & Wholesalers

Our robust platform enables agents to quickly contact you and begin the underwriting, quoting, and submission process.

Schedule a demo Learn More
ProgramBusiness for <span>Carriers, MGA’s & Wholesalers</span> 1

Get a searchable business directory, with any number of program listings

ProgramBusiness for <span>Carriers, MGA’s & Wholesalers</span> 2

Get your program in front our our network of over 80,000+ independent agents

ProgramBusiness for <span>Carriers, MGA’s & Wholesalers</span> 3

Market your programs via on site ads and email marketing campaigns

Looking for a Market?

ProgramBusiness for Retail Agents & Brokers

Find the perfect market for your risk. Search by coverage or keyword and region and start getting quotes immediately.

Sign Up for Free Learn more
ProgramBusiness for <span>Retail Agents & Brokers</span> 1

Search 350+ Specialty Programs by coverage or keyword

ProgramBusiness for <span>Retail Agents & Brokers</span> 2

Submit Acords, Drivers’ Schedules, and Loss Runs directly on the platform

ProgramBusiness for <span>Retail Agents & Brokers</span> 3

Try new niche markets and expand your footprint in industries you already serve

ProgramBusiness News

The world of insurance delivered. Insurance Industry News carefully curated by insurance industry experts. Stay up to date on breaking news, industry changes and updates, and press releases from all the major players.

Sign Up to Receive Updates Straight to Your Inbox
Enrollment Spikes in California’s Home Insurer of Last Resort, Raising Concerns Over Its Sustainability

Enrollment Spikes in California’s Home Insurer of Last Resort, Raising Concerns Over Its Sustainability

With home insurers scaling back coverage in the state, enrollment is surging in California’s backstop insurance plan — as is the plan's risk of sustaining losses that it can't cover. Victoria Roach, president of the FAIR Plan Assn., told lawmakers this week that property owners even in areas with low wildfire risk were finding it difficult to keep their homes insured as companies increased rates, limit coverage or left areas susceptible to natural disasters amid climate change. That has prompted thousands of Californians to purchase coverage through the state insurer as a last resort. Funded by the insurers doing business in California, the Fair Access to Insurance Requirement plan provides a limited policy as a fallback for property owners unable to find conventional coverage they can afford. Roach said the Fair Plan set a new record last month when it added 15,000 new policyholders. The FAIR plan has about 375,000 policyholders, and the insurer’s total risk exposure was $311 billion as of December 2023; it was $50 billion in 2018. “We’re one of the largest writers in the state right now in terms of new business coming in,” Roach said. “As those numbers climb, our financial stability comes more into question.” Roach said homeowners and businesses are typically insured by any of the state’s 118 standard insurers or 132 surplus line insurers, which specialize in high-risk insurance. “Unfortunately, as you know with the current state of the market, I think this is often reversed because there’s not a lot of options out there for people,” Roach told lawmakers during Wednesday’s Assembly Insurance Committee. “Instead, the FAIR plan is quickly moving to be the first resort for a lot of people.” She said consumers who would never have sought insurance through the FAIR plan in years past were now among the new policyholders, many of whom were not living in wildfire areas. The insurer’s expansion is the latest wrinkle in California’s ongoing insurance crisis, and it mirrors a similar trend across the country of major companies dropping customers in areas prone to wildfires, flooding and hurricanes. Florida’s state insurance of last resort, known as the Citizens Property Insurance Corp., has become the largest property insurer there, adding about 11,000 new policies in the last two weeks, according to local reports. In Louisiana, state officials have been trying to address an insurance crisis following a series of hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 that caused insurance companies to stop renewing policies or leave the state. Since 2022, at least eight insurers, led by State Farm and Allstate, have announced plans to stop offering home insurance to new customers or withdraw from the state entirely. Some blamed a spike in the cost of reinsurance — insurance policies that insurance companies buy to cover their big losses — and financial strains caused by inflation that have made materials and labor for home repair and rebuilding costly. The potential loss of insurers prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue an executive order commanding the insurance commissioner to take action to address issues with the insurance market and expand coverage options for consumers. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara's response to the crisis is a set of new rules still being implemented that would allow insurers to raise rates to cover reinsurance costs and projected losses from catastrophic fires, but also require them to provide coverage for more homes in the canyons and hills. The proposals, which aim to move people off the FAIR plan and slow the increase in premiums, have won support from insurance industry trade groups and some consumer groups, but criticism from other consumer advocates. Under the existing system, insurers need to apply to the Department of Insurance to raise their average rates across the state and prove that the price hike is justified. The process allows consumer advocates to intervene to contest the insurer's claims. This system was created when California voters approved Proposition 103 in 1988, but the insurance department went a couple of steps further than the ballot measure. Its rules barred insurance companies from including the cost of reinsurance in their rates and allowed the use only of historical loss data, rather than forward-looking simulations, to support a hike in premiums. Insurance industry representatives have been trying to lift both of those restrictions for years, but their calls have intensified as insurers have pulled back coverage in California. On Thursday, Lara proposed a regulation that would allow insurers to use catastrophe modeling that takes into account the projected impacts of climate change and other shifting factors when asking to raise rates. “We can no longer look solely to the past as a guide to the future,” Lara said in a statement. “My strategy will help modernize our marketplace, restoring options for consumers while safeguarding the independent, transparent review of rate filings by Department of Insurance experts, which is a bedrock principle of California law.” The proposed regulation comes a week after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion demanding that Lara investigate the compliance measures that insurance companies require from homeowners to keep their coverage. “It’s no secret that insurance providers have become more conservative due to increased wildfire threats statewide,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who introduced the motion, in a statement. “As a result, homeowners are increasingly being put in a very tough position: pay higher premiums and comply with varied, costly, and inconsistent mitigation requirements or lose your insurance.” She added: “I’ve heard from many of my constituents district wide who are facing steep cost increases or being dropped altogether by their insurance carriers and left to fend for themselves. That’s simply unacceptable.” In response to proposed expansion of catastrophe models, Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group that often intervenes in proposed rate hikes, said Lara’s proposed regulation limits transparency. “Black box catastrophe models are notoriously contradictory and unreliable, which is why public review and transparency are key before insurance companies are allowed to use them to raise rates,” the group wrote in a statement. “Commissioner Lara’s proposed rule appears drafted to limit the information available to the public about the impact of models on rates in violation of Proposition 103.” The group contends that the rule fails to spell out how the Department of Insurance would assess a model’s bias or accuracy and instead creates “a pre-review process that appears primarily focused on determining what information companies must disclose and what they may conceal from public view.” “California needs a public catastrophe model to ensure climate data is transparent and to prevent insurance price-gouging and bias.”
Read More
Treasury Is Asked Why U.S. Firm Insures Ships Carrying Iran Oil

Treasury Is Asked Why U.S. Firm Insures Ships Carrying Iran Oil

A Republican congressman is asking the Treasury Department to explain its handling of a US insurance company that covered dozens of tanker ships suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil. Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter Thursday inquiring about New York City-based American Club. “An American company reaping a profit from its involvement in insuring tankers that are transporting illicit Iranian oil to finance terrorism demands answers from this Administration,” he wrote. Nunn cited a February report by Bloomberg News showing that American Club covered 21 vessels suspected of carrying illicit Iranian oil, more than any of its 11 larger peers. The insurer had recently dropped 19 other vessels after inquiries from Nunn and Bloomberg, the report stated. The Bloomberg story was based on research by the nonprofit group United Against Nuclear Iran, which maintains a list of ships suspected of carrying the country’s crude. US sanctions prohibit Western businesses from knowingly participating in sanctioned activities. But the Treasury Department, which oversees sanctions, asks insurers like American Club to go further and monitor whether ships they cover are secretly trading in sanctioned products. Nunn asked Treasury to explain what it’s doing to investigate “American Club and its involvement in the sale of illicit Iranian oil,” as well as what the department is doing more broadly to police American businesses for sanctions compliance. American Club has said that its compliance program is top-notch and that it would never knowingly insure a ship that violates sanctions. “Our due diligence policies and procedures are known to the relevant authorities, including OFAC, and as far as we know, are accepted by those institutions,” said Daniel Tadros, the company’s chief operating officer, referring to Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “We will continue to do the best job possible when it comes to due diligence investigations and to take action when necessary.” A Treasury spokesperson didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.    
Read More
Marsh McLennan Agency Expects Stable Commercial Property Reinsurance Market in 2024

Marsh McLennan Agency Expects Stable Commercial Property Reinsurance Market in 2024

Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA), part of the global insurance and reinsurance broker, has released its 2024 Commercial Property Insurance Trends report, highlighting a more balanced reinsurance market this year compared to the harsh conditions of 2023. According to MMA, “In 2023, the industry witnessed the toughest property reinsurance market in decades.” This was due to significant changes in policy structures leading to higher retentions for companies. Insurers, faced with soaring costs, were forced to consider cutting limits while absorbing higher retentions and facing rising premiums. Additionally, active secondary perils and shifts in reinsurance structures left insurance carriers covering more losses on their balance sheets rather than passing them to reinsurers. However, MMA states that “the volatility experienced in the 2023 reinsurance market seems to have stabilized.” “The reported total median risk-adjusted price increases were in the single digits following treaty renewals from the first of this year. As more optimism enters the reinsurance market, we can expect a gradual return of appetite and capacity,” MMA adds. The report further highlights another positive development, which is the expansion of coverage options for treaty renewals in 2024, including previously excluded or restricted perils such as terrorism, riots, and civil commotion. MMA estimates that as the market continues to improve and insurers become more interested in reinsurance again, price increases are expected to slow down. Although MMA can’t predict the frequency or severity of losses in 2024, it feels that it would take a significant event causing over $75 billion in losses for any serious concerns to arise.
Read More
Apple to Pay $490M to Settle Allegations Over Misleading Investors

Apple to Pay $490M to Settle Allegations Over Misleading Investors

Apple has agreed to pay $490 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging CEO Tim Cook misled investors about a steep downturn in iPhone’s sales in China that culminated in a jarring revision to the company’s revenue forecast. The preliminary settlement filed Friday in Oakland, California, federal court stems from a shareholder lawsuit focused on the way Apple relayed information about how iPhone models released in September 2018 were performing in China, one of the company’s biggest markets. Cook signaled that the new iPhones were off to a good start during an investor conference call in early November 2018, according to the complaint. That reassurance dissolved into a huge letdown on Jan. 2, 2019 when the Cook issued a warning that Apple’s revenue for the just-completed quarter would fall $9 billion below management’s forecast for the period. What’s more, virtually all of the sales drop was traced to weak demand in China. It marked the first time Apple had cut its revenue guidance since the iPhone’s release in 2007 and triggered its stock price to plunge 10% in the next day of frenetic trading, wiping out more than $70 billion in shareholder wealth. Apple vehemently denied Cook deceived investors about the iPhone’s sales in China between early November and early January. The Cupertino, California, company maintained that stance in the settlement documents, but said it decided to make the payment after more than four years of legal wrangling to avoid an “overly burdensome, expensive, and distracting” hassle. The settlement was reached through a mediator after U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Apple’s request to dismiss the case and set a Sept. 9 trial date. Gonzalez Rogers is now being asked to approve the settlement in a hearing scheduled for April 30. Thousands of shareholders who bought Apple stock in late 2018 could be eligible for a piece of the settlement, which will be distributed from of a pool that will be less than $490 million after lawyers involved in the case are paid. The attorneys plan to seek up to one-fourth, or about $122 million, of the settlement. The $490 million payment represents less than 1% of the $97 billion profit that Apple pocketed during its last fiscal year ended in September. Apple shareholders who have held on to their shares have become wealthier too. Apple’s stock price has more than quadrupled from where it stood after Cook’s China warning, creating an additional $2 trillion in shareholder wealth.    
Read More

Subscribe to ProgramBusiness News

Get alerts to your inbox on insurance news.

=
Subscribe to ProgramBusiness News