NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Property-casualty insurers will probably post a decline in underwriting results this year as carriers cut prices to maintain business.

Companies are selling coverage below cost "to a greater degree than is sustainable in the long term", Brian Nocco, chief financial officer at Bermuda-based XL Capital Ltd., said yesterday in an interview after speaking at a Standard & Poor's conference in Brooklyn, New York.

"You've got some major participants in the industry, and the industry as a whole that's working hard to maintain their books" of business by cutting prices.

Rising markets through 2007 permitted North American carriers to give price breaks to attract business. As investment returns faltered amid the credit crisis last year, insurers continued reducing rates to head off client defections. In the US last year the industry's underwriting result, or what's left of premiums after expenses and claims are paid, swung to a loss of $21.2 billion, according to Insurance Services Office Inc., the Jersey City, New Jersey-based supplier of actuarial data.

"We have been a bit surprised" that prices are not rising, Nocco said. "There are a lot of wounded animals out there and people who are trying to preserve their market share."