AM Best Special Reports: Expect Best, Plan for Worst

Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised -- sage advice for an industry that bases its business on the accumulation of risk, according to the A.M. Best Company. No one could have foretold the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Nor could anyone accurately have predicted a series of severe hurricanes would strike Florida in 2004 or that terrorist attacks of catastrophic proportions would be carried out in the United States in 2001. No prognosticators alerted insurers to the rise in tort costs in the late 1990s, or that several large companies would have be...