Bob Graham, Executive Editor

The recent news that Tokio Marine, Japan’s largest insurer, is buying Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp. and Philadelphia Insurance Cos. for $4 billion may mark the start of a buying spree for the industry. I’m willing to bet that this deal will be the first in a series of foreign acquisitions of American insurance companies in the near future.With the dollar worth nearly nothing inside, and, more importantly, in this case, outside the U.S. these days, buyers can purchase a lot of American insurance company with their foreign money. Couple that value of foreign money with the tremendous profits property-casualty insurers are amassing since Hurricane Katrina three years ago and it would seem that more of them are likely to become acquisition targets in the near future. The property-casualty market may be the only one, however, to generate foreign interest.The flat life insurance market might discourage acquisitions in that arena, and no one - probably not even some of the health insurers themselves - want to grab onto a health carrier right now with universal health and other reform proposals swirling around.I’ll bet at least two more of these foreign acquisitions will occur in the next six months.