Agenda: Hopes for the New Year

Ten years have passed since the dawn of the new millennium. The predictions of economic meltdown because of the millennium bug were false but we have seen crises that have had enormous impact on the global economy: 9/11, the crash of the dot-com bubble and the credit crunch following the collapse of Lehmans. These incidents still considerably influence the world order but UK general insurance has weathered the turmoil better than most.

There has been the hardest market the industry has ever known followed by what is turning out to be the longest soft market in our history. Paradoxically, in spite of this instability and taking into account inflation and economic growth, the industry's commercial premium income ended the decade at about the same level as it started. However, unlike the previous ten years, in eight of the years, an underwriting profit was made in UK commercial insurance compared with a loss in all but two in the