"Commercial insurance tends to follow the U.S. economy pretty closely," says Steven N. Weisbart, CLU, senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute. (Shutterstock)
National Underwriter's Top 100 and Heads of the Lines lists, the data for which is provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, gives us a snapshot of the P&C industry's leading companies.
To add some context around the charts, NU spoke with Steven N. Weisbart, CLU, senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.).
As Weisbart explained, for the P&C industry, 2018 wasn't so bad compared with 2017 — but then, 2017 was a record-breaking year. In 2017, insured losses, based on catastrophic claims data, reached $100 billion. And economic losses are usually estimated to be two times insured losses.
Perhaps the most important numbers in our Top 100 lists are the combined ratios for 2017 and 2018. In 2018, this ratio was 99.2; in 2017, it was 103.7, and in 2016, it was 100.6, as noted in Weisbart's "2018 — Commentary on year-end financial results," published by I.I.I.
When looking at premium income, top-line growth continues. As estimated by ISO/Verisk, direct written premium growth for 2018 was 5.6% with net written premiums up by 10.8%.
"Commercial insurance tends to follow the U.S. economy pretty closely," Weisbart said, "and the economy had a good year in 2018." Personal lines didn't fare as well, thanks to severe weather problems. "The frequency of claims for personal auto are down," he noted, "but the severity is up because we're now driving a computer with wheels."
Net premiums written reported in these pages are based on National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) statutory P&C statement filings filed by U.S. individual insurance companies, which may include business written outside the U.S., if reported on those NAIC statements. The rankings in individual lines (commercial auto, inland marine and fire, for example) reflect net premiums written (in $000s), with the exception of directors and officers and stand-alone cybersecurity. They're ranked by direct premiums written because NAIC statements do not disclose net premiums written for those lines.
The results from our Top 100 companies survey are highlighted below. Look for additional survey results later this week on PropertyCasualty360, as well as the complete package in the July issue of NU Property & Casualty magazine.
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