Pricing, broader coverage and increasing penetration of the corporate marketplace have helped spur dramatic growth in directors’ and officers’ liability business in the past decade, according to new research from Conning Research and Consulting.

Over the past ten years, the directors’ and officers’ line of business has grown faster than the broader property/casualty market, at nearly double the rate of the commercial lines average.

“The hard Directors’ & Officers’ market and related claims issues in the period 2000 to 2004 resulted in buyers of corporate D&O, especially larger ones, becoming much more sophisticated in their management of D&O exposures,” said Mark Jablonowski, analyst at Conning Research & Consulting. “This increased sophistication is reshaping the market at the upper end. At the same time, awareness of D&O exposures among midsized and small companies, including private and not-for-profit companies, has increased. As a result, this market is growing in the face of a soft overall market for property-casualty, and the small and mid-account segment is less volatile.”