The US property and casualty lined showed something of a rebound in 2021, according to new analysis from AM Best.
The company just published a special report looking at the figures through Q3 2021. It said that there had been a return to more ‘normal’ results in comparison with 2020.
AM Best said that the growth in direct premiums written had been 10% between the whole of 2020 and to date in Q3 2021. In comparison, the change in the two-year period between 2019 and 2021 was 11.8%.
The authors added: “The two-year growth rate, from 2019 to 2021 (11.8%), is slightly higher than the two-year growth rate from 2017 to 2019 (10.7%).”
Even though the property and casualties lines had ‘rebounded’, wrote the report’s authors, they did sound some warning alarms.
The authors wrote: “Growing inflation will likely affect the profitability of all major P/C lines of coverage. In addition, trends related to social inflation and nuclear jury verdicts could intensify these concerns.”
Christopher Graham, senior industry analyst at AM Best, said: “Although premium volumes have rebounded with the pandemic slowdown, natural catastrophe insured losses in 2021 were nearly double that of 2020, mainly from Hurricane Ida.”
Much of the resiliency in the property and casualty lines occurred after the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which the authors said particularly affected direct premium production and profitability along some key lines.
Other lines of coverage suggested a return to normal (although these figures do not reflect the current Omicron wave).
AM Best also looked at the US private passenger auto liability line, finding that its direct premiums dipped from $115m in 2019 to $113m in 2020. The first nine months of 2021, however, saw $116m of direct premiums being written.
The US homeowners multi-peril line also saw something of a rebound, with direct premiums written going from $79m in 2019 to $83m in 2020 to $90m in the first three-quarters of 2021. The two-year change between 2019 and 2021 at 14.3% has been followed by a change of 8.4% between 2020 and the up-to-Q3 2021.
A similar rebound was recorded by AM Best in US farm owners, which saw a 2019-2021 percentage change of 8.2%, and a 2020-Q3 2021 shift of 4.9%.
Perhaps more dramatic was US workers’ compensation, which saw a two-year change of -7.7% between 2019 and 2021, but a change between 2020 and Q3 2021 of 1.8%. US commercial auto also saw significant improvement, growing 22.2% between 2019 and 2021, registering 21.1% between 2020 and Q3 2021.
US commercial multi-peril saw a less-dramatic swing, going from 12.1% between 2019 and 2021 to 7.5% between 2020 and Q3 2021. Meanwhile claims-made US other liability saw a 2019 to 2021 change of 58.7%, with a 32.8% change between 2020 and 2021. Its occurrence counterpart saw a 25.3% change from 2019 to 2021, with a 16.7% change between 2020 and Q3 2021.
