Sluggish growth and less than stellar operational results will mark the second-quarter reporting season for personal lines companies, an investment bank forecast yesterday.

Morgan Stanley property-casualty analyst William Wilt wrote, “We expect signs of a soft operational landing and challenging growth environment to be manifest in second-quarter results.”

However, the bank foresees that in the long run, those personal lines companies with advantages of scale, sophistication and marketing savvy should prosper.

Allstate would seem a safer bet this quarter than Progressive. “Based on our recent cross-selling work, we now believe the negative impact on Allstate auto sales due to their reduction in coastal homeowner policies will be less than we had previously expected,” Mr. Wilt wrote.

In fact, the carrier has been adding to auto units in Florida despite a substantial cutback in homeowners' policies. And the fact that Progressive is already well penetrated in Florida, Mr. Wilt noted, will make it all the less likely it would benefit from any catastrophe-related dislocation in the auto market.

Meanwhile, Seattle-based Safeco announced a management shake-up yesterday.

Mike LaRocca, Safeco president of the property-casualty operations, announced he was quitting to pursue other interests and Chief Executive Officer Paula Reynolds immediately put a new team in place.

“New strategies for growth, investment and expense management leads us to think we would be reluctant to bet against the [Safeco] shares in the short term,” Mr. Wilt wrote, adding Ms. Reynolds has cost-cutting credentials from previous posts she has held.

As for those commercial carriers with catastrophe exposure, Mr. Wilt favors ACE over XL. “Top-line growth at XL is clouded by its sidecar [reinsurance vehicles] and rating agency focus, we think, while margins seem more likely to be adversely influenced by Hurricanes Katrina-Rita-Wilma reserves than those at ACE,” he wrote.

Regarding the reinsurance sector in general, Mr. Wilt wrote that premium pricing may continue to show strength despite risk management moves.

At a recent investor day, Hannover Re indicated that reinsurance premiums were up so far this year in the 50-to-80 percent range while deductibles increased by two-thirds and limits purchased increased by about 50 percent over 2005.

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Sluggish Growth Seen For 2nd Quarter

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