The impact of the global economic crisis on property and casualty insurance and reinsurance was the focus for a seminar held at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess yesterday.

The meeting, which was hosted by Matson, Driscoll and Damico, looked at how the state of the economy affects different types of claims, in particular from the perspective of underwriting value, property and other types of claims.

Proceedings were conducted by a panel of the international forensic and investigative accountancy firm's Jack Damico, Bill Bradshaw and Flemming Jensen, with an attentive audience including some of Bermuda's claims specialists in attendance discussing everything from common value reporting mistakes to the effect of the Madoff scandal on the industry.

Mr. Damico gave an overview of the company and its services, before Mr. Bradshaw spoke about the impact of the downturn on property time element and commercial general liability claims, outlining the similarities between the two sorts of claim and the indicators of an economy in trouble, including trend figures for GDP, profits, unemployment and industry output.

"The bad economy has been a continuing problem throughout the world and certainly it is affecting the businesses that you are insuring," he said.

"But what we have learnt from this is there are winners and there are losers in a bad economy - for example, the auto industry is in serious trouble right now, while the food and beverage sector is at the same level it was last year and the year before that.

"You really need to take a look at what is going on in your specific industry with a company that you are insuring because some industries are affected differently to others.

"In my 34 years in business this is the most dramatic economy change I have seen."

Mr. Jensen then wrapped up with a talk on the impact of the global economic crisis on property claims, concentrating on business interruption loss, adjusted standard turnover and extra expense/increased cost of working loss measurement issues. Other topics covered ranged from the downturn's effect on energy losses and legal issues, to typical forensic procedures, before the floor was opened to questions and answers.