“It was a kind of avuncular, sleepy line of business,” said William R. Berkley, the chief executive of W. R. Berkley, a commercial insurer in Greenwich, Conn. “Then losses started to outstrip even what investment income might have been able to make up.”Yeah, yeah, that's what we used to say about the mortgage business.
Now what would really be cool is if all those people who took over risks from their insurers also had ARMs . . . wait . . .