Here We Go Again

Insurance agents are seeing increased competition play out across most segments of the insurance industry.  Despite two years of significant hurricane losses, an article in National Underwriter on current insurance industry pricing (see here; also see our prior post here) concludes that we are at the beginning of another soft cycle in the insurance business.  To most practitioners this is an obvious conclusion – pricing is down and coverage terms are eroding.  This is good for the customers, but a long-term bad trend for the industry.  Here we go again…

Some comments from National Underwriter:

• Commercial property-casualty prices continued to fall … showing a 6 percent average decline in January.
• The P/C market shows no signs of hardening right now.
• General liability and workers’ compensation led the downward trend - each down 8 percent - followed by professional liability with a 6 percent decline.
• Premiums were down across the board for all types of buyers, but the bigger the buyer, the deeper the discount.