Risk and Insurance magazine, an industry publication focussed primarily on the property and casualty industry, has an interesting interview with Marsh CEO Michael Cherkasky. Cherkasky, a relative newcomer to Marsh who joined the organization when they acquired Kroll (investigations and security firm), was perhaps the best stroke of luck Marsh could have had.
Cherkasky worked with NY Attorney General Spitzer at the state level, and they know each other well. His appointment to CEO will go far to deflect Spitzer’s attacks, as their relationship appears to be positive.
The interview details Marsh’s plans for the future, and is required reading for any risk manager, broker, or regulator wondering what the impact of the contingency commission-sham bidding scandal will be on brokers.
One excerpt is particularly telling…
(Risk and Insurance editor Jack Roberts) “Do you think that if other competitors don’t accept that model-that all sides of the transaction ought to be transparent-that that will give Marsh a competitive edge?
(Cherkasky) – “We absolutely do. The attitude of caveat emptor-let the buyer beware-that’s not going to be our attitude. We think that will be a competitive edge and that we will be very tough to compete with if you don’t do it that way. But that’s up to the marketplace. We’re going to adopt that because that’s what we believe is going to be effective in the 21st century under this regulatory environment and we’re confident it’s going to make a fair return for our shareholders.”
That competitive return will likely be considerably less than it was pre-Spitzer, but better lower returns than none at all.

Weiss Ratings has recently released their report on insurance industry profitability, and the news is both good and bad. Good if you compare it to past year’s reports, bad if you are expecting robust returns.
The report notes: “Of the 544 insurers studied by Weiss for the year ending 2003, 69 percent experienced either negative margins or profit margins of less than five percent.”
Makes the grocery business look like a great investment.
Breaking down the numbers further by category, here are the individual industry sector results:
HMO – 3.8%
Life Insurance – 8.2 percent
Health Insurance – 5.5 percent
and the overall winner for most profitable insurance sector is…
P&C at 8.3 percent
Not surprisingly for those who have been reading our blog, the culprit appears to be the industry’s inability to contain rising health care costs.
Melissa Gannon, Weiss VP, notes: “”Although the industry has enjoyed an increase in revenues by raising premiums, insurers have also had to deal with the rising cost of medical care as a result of more open networks, an aging population, expensive medical advances, and an inefficient healthcare system.”
While some in the media believe we are all wintering in St Bart’s except for those brief holidays in the Alps, the truth is we continue to work very hard to combat health care costs, and do not appear to be making much progress.
Note – For those unfamiliar with Weiss, they are perhaps one of the more critical rating agencies, but their tough standards have been validated time and again as the more recognized entities have missed such debacles as Kemper Insurance’s sudden demise.

The ongoing investigations into broker and insurer malfeasance continue to send shockwaves throughout the insurance industry. And, these investigations are causing those doing business outside the “broker-insurer-underwriter” world to revisit what have been long-established “ways of doing business.”
While Mr. Spitzer and colleagues have started their investigations at the sales end of things, they may well find themselves uncovering many other instances of inappropriate or unethical payments.
For example, managed care vendors often pay TPAs an “administrative fee” that is a percentage of the revenues they receive from the TPA’s clients. Typically these fees amount to 10-15% of total revenues, but fees in the 25% range are not unheard of. There is speculation in the WC industry that one large managed care firm pays one large TPA upwards of $10 million in “fees” annually.
These fees are rarely fully disclosed to the TPA’s clients, and when there is disclosure, it is obscured by legalese, buried in the depths of a lengthy contract, and often mistaken for innocuous boilerplate.
One very large WC TPA claims it has provided full disclosure by including language similar to the following.
“The TPA does not receive any payment from the managed care vendor, except it reserves the right to charge the vendor for administrative expenses related to implementing managed care programs.”
Clearly it is incumbent upon risk managers, TPAs, underwriters, and brokers to fully and completely disclose these arrangements. It is just as clear that until and unless the light of day is shone on a few of these deals, they will continue unabated.