With six editions of E&S/Specialty Lines Extra completed, itseems fitting to pause to take stock of where we've been during ourfirst half year.

What are the issues and trends emerging in our e-newsletterreports that are shaping the specialty lines segment of theproperty-casualty industry in 2008? Are they the ones we wereexpecting to write about when we first started planning our newventure in late 2007?

For the most part, the answer is yes.

Soft market pricing, increasing merger and acquisition activity,changes in the legal landscape and innovative product introductionshave all taken some space in every one of our six newsletters.

Even the fact that we'd publish articles about standard marketsinsurers writing specialty coverages is unsurprising, although theidentities of the two highlighted in this month's lead article didgive our editors a moment's pause.

Beyond that, it was actually easier to predict our recurringtopics than it was to choose the name of the first of what we hopewill be a growing collection of e-newsletters produced by theeditors of National Underwriter's property-casualty magazine inyears to come.

Credit for the title goes to NU's marketing department, andwhile E-and-S-slash-Specialty Lines Extra isn't especiallymemorable or mellifluous as titles go, we would be hard pressed tocome up with something better.

The insurance we write about here is sometimes placed in theexcess and surplus lines insurance marketplace--hence the "E&S"at the front of the title. At other times, the coverage is writtenon admitted paper, explaining the need for the "slash-Specialty" inour name.

"Extra?"

Our e-newsletter is an "extra"--an added bonus--to NU magazine,focusing on one specific slice of the p-c insurance market. Inaddition, the idea our marketing gurus probably had in mind was toconjure up an image of a newsboy peddling papers, offering thelatest headlines in the days before we could deliver news ofbreaking developments via wire services and e-mails.

As the months passed, the creators of NU's E&S/SpecialtyLines Extra e-newsletter would discover they were not alone intheir quest to find a fitting title or to build a brand in theE&S/Specialty market.

In case you missed it, the article in our June edition, titled"Business Strategies Vary Widely Among Specialty Carriers InSoftening Market," was just one indication that the search for aname has been an unexpected topic of discussion among leaders inthis market segment.

"I fine people in our company when they use that term," said TomNerney, president and chief executive officer of United StatesLiability Group, referring to the term "E&S"--a term hereserves for an "emotional" individual-risk underwriting processthat underwriters at his company don't practice.

However, Paul Springman, president and chief operating officerfor Markel Corp., said that "we love the term E&S. We love thefact that we are individual-account underwriters. That's ourhistory and our passion."

Among other things, Mr. Nerney believes the use of the term"E&S" encourages a narrow, market-of-last-resort mindset thatprompts MGAs and other specialty insurers to adopt reactivestrategies in soft markets.

Seeking to shake their "market-of-last-resort" brand, executivesof the American Association of Managing General Agents areredefining the value of MGAs for their retail agent customers andinviting retailers to look to MGAs as their first stop for standardcoverage, we reported in another article in last month'sedition.

Back in March, one of our early e-newsletter articles alsoreported a similar initiative taking shape at the NationalAssociation of Professional Surplus Lines Offices, with the groupputting nearly half-a-million dollars behind a campaign to marketthe value of wholesale brokers--their access to insurance companiesand their expertise--to retail agent customers.

With AAMGA and NAPSLO busy working on the big task of branding,we're inviting our readers to tackle the smaller one--the issue ofan appropriate title.

What should participants in the E&S and specialty linesmarketplace call themselves? Should different names be used todistinguish those operating on a nonadmitted basis from those thatoffer coverage on admitted paper?

If you're like me, you may not know exactly where or when theterm "excess and surplus" originated in the first place. BernieHeinze, executive director of the AAMGA, provided an answer to thatquestion, along with a little bit of history, in a recente-mail.

"Admitted insurers have never been able to address all of theinsurance needs of industry. In many cases, the unusual exposurepresented is beyond the scope of the admitted market underwriters'experience; in others the magnitude of the potential loss exceedsthe capacity of all of the admitted insurers combined," hewrote.

"As industry has grown, so has the need for greater capacity andthe ability of insurers to cover the new risks which are evolving,"he continued.

"Early on, Lloyd's of London stepped forward to fill thegap...The entrepreneurial Lloyd's underwriters were alert to thegreat potential of this country, and in 1890 Cuthbert Heath wrotethe first American risk ever in Lloyd's 'non-marine' market," henoted.

"Recognizing that nonadmitted insurers such as Lloyd's werenecessary when admitted insurers were unable to fill industry'sinsurance needs, the regulators established special rules to permitthe writing of insurance with nonadmitted carriers under certaincircumstances," he said.

"As the coverage to be written was excess or 'surplus' of theamount or type that could be written in the admitted market, thenonadmitted market came to be known as the 'Excess & SurplusLines' market," he explained.

By the way, for those of you who don't know already, Mr. Heinzehas launched his own mini-crusade over terminology. Despite his useof the term "nonadmitted" in the discussion above, he wants toeliminate that particular word from insurance dictionaries.

"Let's call it what it is [and] eliminate the confusion forconsumers who want to buy good, quality insurance," he said, notingthat businessowners are likely to feel uncomfortable when they seethe word nonadmitted on their policies.

"How would you feel if you heard, 'Congratulations, your son hasjust been nonadmitted to college?'" he asked. "Is that good news orbad?'" you'd want to know, Mr. Heinze suggested.

Waging his battle "state by state [and] insurance department byinsurance department," Mr. Heinze insists, "It is not nonadmitted.It is excess and surplus lines."

Do you agree? What's the right name? E&S lines? Specialtylines? Nonadmitted coverage? Nonstandard market? Thesomething-extra marketplace?

Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] with yoursuggestions.

Also feel free to e-mail me with comments related to any of ourarticle content. We appreciate the attention of readers who pointout errors or items requiring clarification, as they did with tworecent items--a D&O chart correction for the first article ofour last e-newsletter, and a clarification of United StatesLiability Insurance Group's figures on the Top 20 Group rankingpresented in NU magazine. See related article for details.