William Robert Berkley, President, CEO & Director of W. R. Berkley Corporation, said that he is seeing early signs that competitiveness in the property catastrophe reinsurance market is spilling over into casualty, driven by participants struggling to reach their premium targets on the property front and therefore leaning into casualty to hit their top-line.
Speaking during W. R. Berkley Corporation’s Q4’25 earnings call, Berkley noted the decline in property catastrophe reinsurance rates at the January 1st, 2026, renewals.
He said, “A data point for you all as it relates to our property cat treaty, our main treaty, our risk-adjusted rate decrease was 19%. So, from my perspective, I think that speaks volumes to the challenges in the market and perhaps what will be waterfalling and making the marketplace more competitive.”
His comments align with Gallagher Re’s latest reinsurance renewal report, which showed that risk-adjusted global property catastrophe reinsurance rates fell by 10% to 20% on average at 1.1 2026.
Berkley suggested that these rate declines are leaving some market participants short of their property premium targets, prompting them to lean into the casualty market. However, he emphasised that this approach does not reflect W. R. Berkley’s underwriting strategy.
He said, “My sense is that, again, a lot of people have a lot of capital and they feel pressure to put it to work, and they’re trying to hit budgets and so on. And as a result of that, when the premium is coming in short on the property cat, they’re looking to try and figure out what other levers they can pull. And casualty would appear to be one of them… So, we’ll have to see over time.”
Berkeley added, “Do I think investment income is a component of it? Yes, probably. Can I quantify for you how much is one versus the other? No, not with any confidence. But I do think that one proved to be more competitive. And from our perspective, it seemed to spill over into the casualty lines more than we would have anticipated.
“Now, having said that, we buy a lot of reinsurance and that’s not a bad thing for us. Where we assume we’ll deal with it just as we have in the past. Our colleagues are interested in making money, not writing business.”
W. R. Berkley reported strong results for Q4’25, with pre-tax underwriting income rising 14.9% year on year to a record $338 million for the quarter, and a record $1.2 billion for the full year 2025.
