soft market

soft market (plural soft markets)

1. (insurance) An economic environment in which insurers are lowering their prices.
   • 2000, Scott Harrington, Patricia Danzon, “The Economics of Liability Insurance”, in Georges Dionne, editor, Handbook of Insurance, Springer Science+Business Media, →DOI, →ISBN, page 296:

     Property-liability insurance markets have been characterized historically by “soft” markets, in which prices are stable or falling and coverage is readily available, followed by “hard” markets, in which prices rise rapidly and availability declines.

   • 2009, J. David Cummins, Olivier Mahul, “Appendix 8: Review of the Catastrophe Reinsurance Market”, in Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries: Principles for Public Intervention, The World Bank, →DOI, →ISBN, page 195:

     Insurers are reluctant to pay out retained earnings during soft markets because of the difficulty of raising capital again when the market enters the next hard market phase, leading to excess capcaity and downward pressure on prices.

   • 2015, Paula Jarzabkowski, Rebecca Bednarek, Paul Spee, “Chapter 2: United We Stand, Divded We Fall: Bearing Risk Collectively”, in Making a Market for Acts of God: The pratice of risk-trading in the global reinsurance industry, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 28:

     Underwriters who had already submitted their quotes at soft market prices wondered if it would be necessary to abide by those low quotes.

• hard market