Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from David Lewis from Raymond James. Your line is open.
David Lewis - Raymond James
Thank you and good morning. A couple of questions to start for Bob; first Bob, can you talk a little bit about the pricing outlook for 2009 and any competitive changes that you’ve seen out there that could have a positive or negative impact?
Secondly Bob for you, I’m curious if you’re seeing any changes at all in kind of the claim trends out there right now. Chuck just indicated that severity remained fairly flat in 2008 versus 2007. Is that something that we might see given that we’ve been at favorable levels for the last couple of years, that we might start to see that tick up?
Bob White
Well David, as far as the pricing outlook is concerned, you know it’s a state-by-state issue and for Florida what we foresee is high single digits to low double digit decreases in 2009 for Florida.
As far as competitive changes are concerned, there’s really nothing different at this point in time than there was when we talked in the third quarter or at the end of the third quarter. There’s nothing that’s happened from a competitive standpoint that would positively or negatively impact our company’s position in the marketplace.
As far as your question on claims trends concern, neither from a frequency or a severity perspective do we see any big changes with frequency on the horizon, particularly when you consider the fact that our policy limits profile is so heavily weighted with policy limits at $250,000.
In a high venue state like Florida, it would take something monumental to forge any upward movement in severity, absent a change in the limits profile that would find us with more $1 million policy limits in place.
David Lewis - Raymond James
Okay Bob, finally is there any new developments or are there any new developments regarding challenges on the state’s total reform?
Bob White
Well, there are a couple of cases that are pending, one in the Third District Court of Appeals and another in the Fourth District Court of Appeals, that don’t involve our company but involve other med-mal insurers. The one in the Fourth District has just been briefed and is going to be set for argument very soon, so we actually expect to see an opinion come from an appellant court on caps in 2009, possibly as late as early 2010, but I kind of expect to see it in 2009; we’ll see.
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