(Bloomberg) Insurers aren?t likely to significantly lower prices on disaster-prone commercial property even if the Atlantic hurricane season proves uneventful, American International Group Inc. chief executive officer Martin Sullivan told investors. ?I don?t anticipate a significant falloff should there be a benign season,? Sullivan, head of the world?s largest insurer, said today at a financial services conference in New York sponsored by Lehman Brothers Inc. ?I think the discipline will hold.?

Property rates in hurricane-prone areas surged after Hurricane Katrina flooded most of New Orleans, pushing insured catastrophe losses in 2005 to a record $57.3 billion. Prices for coastal businesses rose as much as 500 percent in the second quarter, according to a survey by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers. The average increase at AIG?s biggest US commercial property unit was 50 percent.

Forecasters at Colorado State University lowered their forecast for the 2006 Atlantic season for the second time on September 1, saying they expected five hurricanes instead of the nine they predicted in May. Hurricane Florence, which is forecast to brush Canada?s Newfoundland coast late today, is only the second hurricane this year, and the first, Ernesto, weakened to a tropical storm before it came ashore in southern Florida.

By this time last year, there had been eight hurricanes, including Katrina. The 24-member KBW Insurance Index, a benchmark for US insurers, climbed 0.9 percent yesterday. Shares of New York-based AIG rose 28 cents to $65 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.