For more than five decades insurance regulators have debated whether investment income earned on a property and liability insurer's capital and/or reserves should be considered in some direct fashion when rates are reviewed and justified. This article first presents a survey that reveals that a significant number of states have adopted policies that require investment income be so considered. The second part of the article presents the results of another survey--this one of insurance company executives involved in the investment function. They were polled as to what impact, if any, the direct consideration of investment income in rate-making would have upon their investment policies. The results of the survey suggest that the new rating approach might encourage insurers to switch their attention, at the margin, toward more equities. Such a consequence could well have significant regulatory importance. For over five decades the question of whether investment income should be directly brought into property and liability insurance rate-making has been disputed.' Generally, the insurance industry has been in oppositionquite successful opposition until the last decade. More recently, those favoring the incorporation of investment results in rate-making have enjoyed considerable success. In mid-1972, the writer polled the insurance commissioners of the fifty states on the question of investment income in rate-making. The results of the survey are in Table 1.2 George B. Flanigan, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the School of Business & Economics of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This paper was presented at the 1973 Annual Meeting of ARIA. 1 For both sides of the debate see Bob Hedges, Insurance Rates and Earnings Considered Together, Journal of Risk and Insurance, September 1969, pp. 455-461; and H. E. Curry, Investment Income in Property and Casualty RateMaking, Journal of Risk and Insurance, September 1969, pp. 447-453. 2The following question was asked: In the approval of rates for property and casualty insurance, does your office explicitly consider investment income from unearned premium or loss reserves? I refer only to the direct credit of investment income against underwriting needs as in Virginia, Maryland, recently New Jersey, and other states. If your state does consider investment income, when was such policy initiated? The results of this survey, as presented in Table 1, are also reported by the same author in Investment Income and Rate-Making, Annals of the Society of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters, June 1973, pp. 59-60.
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