Welcome to 2017’s first edition of The Summit magazine. We are pleased to continue our efforts to bring a broker’s perspective of the marketplace.

We expect 2017 to be yet another interesting year in the environmental market. Continued expansion of coverage over the last ten years is now bumping up against developing loss trends. Premiums that have dropped every year against all rational thought, appear to have finally reached the bottom for true environmental risks. Long-rumored acquisition activity has picked up dramatically. And finally, we have seen one of the largest writers of environmental risks in the history of the product walk away from another huge part of their business, all because of the long-term results of this challenging class of business.

All of these factors will affect the business we see and work on every day. At Beacon Hill, we firmly believe this supports the premise we’ve long held; that quality risks need to partner with quality carriers for the long haul. In this issue of The Summit we will take a closer look at Site Pollution coverages, discuss some of the specific pressures this book is under, and some of the opportunities it represents.

We also wanted to let you know that The Summit will move to a biannual format, with our mid-year issue being published in June and our end of the year issue going out in early December. We have had an overwhelmingly positive response to our editorial topics and have seen tremendous growth in our readership over the past year. Emboldened by this response, we want to take the time to dig deeper into the issues that are driving our industry. We believe that our readers want an even more in-depth discussion of the marketplace―in addition to showcasing specific products and classes of business.

And as always, we appreciate your feedback and thank you for reading.