The U.S. property and casualty industry’s 2016 first-quarter net income fell 24%, to $13.7 billion, as underwriting results — as well as net investment income and realized gains — deteriorated compared to the first quarter of 2015, according to insurance industry rating agency A.M. Best’s latest "Special Report."
Despite the negative results, the industry maintained a combined ratio under 100 in the quarter, and the observed deterioration may be more a result of weather events in the quarter than a sign of where the industry is heading going forward.
It is worth noting that underwriting results fell because of the highest level of first-quarter catastrophe losses since 2011. “Among key events driving losses in the quarter were a series of severe storms that impacted nearly all sections of the country in March, a significant winter storm in mid-February that was followed later in the month by systems that brought both winter and spring storm conditions across the central and eastern sections of the country, and flooding and severe weather in California in January,” says A.M. Best.
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