The purposes of this study were (1) to assess internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Prospective Memory Questionnaire (PMQ) developed by Hannon and associates; (2) to compare PMQ self-ratings of adults with brain injury versus younger and older noninjured adults; (3) to develop short-term and long-term tasks for measuring actual prospective memory performance; and (4) to study the relationship between scores on the PMQ and the prospective memory tasks. Internal consistency of the PMQ was .92 and test-retest reliability was .88. Groups differed significantly on only one PMQ subscale. Actual prospective memory performance was significantly worse for adults with brain injury and older adults than for younger adults on two of the three sets of summary measures. PMQ self-ratings were significantly but weakly correlated with short-term task performance, but not with long-term task performance. Implications of the findings for assessment and treatment of prospective memory impairment are discussed.

This article considers the role of American International Group (AIG) and the insurance sector in the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the implications for insurance regulation. Following an overview of the causes of the crisis, I explore the events and policies that contributed to federal government intervention to prevent bankruptcy of AIG and the scope of federal assistance to AIG. I discuss the extent to which insurance in general poses systemic risk and whether a systemic risk regulator is desirable for insurers or other nonbank financial institutions. The last two sections of the article address the financial crisis's implications for proposed optional and/or mandatory federal chartering and regulation of insurers and for insurance regulation in general. Copyright (c) The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2009.

Analysis of abnormal premium growth surrounding changes in financial strength ratings for a large panel of property/casualty insurers generally indicates significant premium declines in the year of and the year following rating downgrades. Consistent with greater risk sensitivity of demand, premium declines were concentrated among commercial insurance, which has narrower guaranty fund protection than personal insurance. Premium declines were greater for firms with low pre-downgrade ratings, and especially pronounced for firms falling below an Arating. There is no evidence of moral hazard in the form of rapid commercial or personal lines premium growth following downgrades of A-or low-rated insurers.

No abstract

For a fixed probability of wrongly classifying a strong insurer as being weak (Type I error), this paper examines the classification power (the probability of correctly identifying a weak insurer as being weak) for two potential solvency detection methods. The first is to classify insurers using ratios based on risk-based capital (RBC) standards and the second is to use the Financial Analysis Tracking System (FAST) solvency screening mechanism created by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). We test the hypothesis that the RBC system has at least as much power for identifying financially weak insurers as the FAST scoring system does. Our empirical results are largely inconsistent with this hypothesis: RBC ratios are less powerful than FAST scores in identifying financially weak property-liability insurers during our sample periods. We also provide limited evidence that RBC ratios and FAST scores are jointly more powerful in identifying weak insurers than FAST scores alone, which suggests that RBC ratios may convey new information about insolvency risk despite their relatively low power on a univariate basis.