Social inflation is one of the latest buzzwords in insurance. It is used by insurers to describe the rising costs of insurance claims resulting from things like increasing litigation, broader definitions of liability, more plaintiff-friendly legal decisions, and larger compensatory jury awards. While the key components driving social inflation have been evident for some time, their impacts on the insurance industry have only started to come to the surface within the past coup

By: Hawley & Associates and Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota Risk Management team You might not realize it, but times have been relatively good for insurance customers. For the most part, premiums have been steadily reducing for years now. In the insurance world, we call this a soft market. But this has changed drastically. The insurance market is hardening as insurance companies experience higher than anticipated losses. As a result, a hard insurance market is rearing i