Groundhogs See Premium Growth Slowing

Insurance groundhogs popped their heads out last week long enough to indicate that while property-casualty prices should keep dropping in general this year, a softening market won't necessarily come at the expense of industry profitability.

Insurers could not have been happy to see the groundhogs surveyed by the New York-based Insurance Information Institute forecasting a continued decline in the rate of growth in net premiums written to an average prediction of 2.7 percent this year, down from the 4.3 percent growth estimated for 2004. Estimates for the year ahead ranged from a high of 4 percent by optimists at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch to a low of 0.9 percent by the pessimists (or are they the realists?) at Standard & Poor's.

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

  • All PropertyCasualty360.com news coverage, best practices, and in-depth analysis.
  • Educational webcasts, resources from industry leaders, and informative newsletters.
  • Other award-winning websites including BenefitsPRO.com and ThinkAdvisor.com.
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.