Commercial P&C insurance marketplace remains hard, but better times ahead for buyers, says Willis Towers Watson - Seite 2

“Because this hard market has been characterized by uncanny underwriting discipline, it’s important for insurance buyers to differentiate themselves into the good tier,” said Peiser. “Buyers and brokers should fight analytics with analytics to differentiate good risks from others in an insurer’s portfolio.”

As for specific lines, property rate increases, while still high, offer what passes as a bright spot in the current marketplace: For non-challenged occupancies, predicted increases fell from +15% to +20% in the fall to +5% to +15% now; for challenged occupancies, the range improved from +30% or more to +20% or more.

General liability predictions remain at +7.5% to +15%.

Casualty excess predictions are slightly less eye-popping than in the fall: from +150% or more for high-hazard buyers and +75% or more for low/moderate hazard buyers, to +100% or more for high-hazard and +50% or more for low/moderate.

Workers compensation continues to offer a respite from big increases, with some buyers even coming away with flat renewals.

Auto rate increases remain plateaued at +8% to +15%.

Directors’ and officers’ liability increases are decelerating, from +20% to +50% for public companies and +10% to +50% for private/nonprofit organizations in the fall to +10% to +40% for public and +5% to +45% for private/nonprofit now.

“Risk differentiation always begins with a strong commitment to risk management. We strongly believe that providing exposure data that is both current and developed with rigor paves the way for better renewal outcomes. High-quality data are also a necessary input for updated analytics and modeling,” added Peiser.

Key findings:

Property: A recent rise in the availability of capacity has created a two-tiered market: one for challenged occupancies and one for non-challenged occupancies.

Casualty: The commercial liability marketplace remains challenged; however, recent lead umbrella and excess liability renewal rates have been less volatile, a trend we expect to continue through 2021.

Auto liability: Auto liability premium rates and claim payments remain on the rise, with some insureds being forced to amend program structure to manage total cost of risk.

Directors’ and officers’: Rates, retentions and terms continue to see upward pressure, but capacity inflow in the public company space is yielding a deceleration of rate increases.

Cyber: As insurers continue their strategies to mitigate the financial losses from the significant increase in frequency and severity of ransomware incidents over the past year, they must now also assess how organizations may have been affected by the SolarWinds, Accellion and Microsoft Exchange Server breaches. In an already hardened insurance market, these recent developments are likely to tighten the terms and availability of certain cyber coverage for some organizations, especially for those that cannot demonstrate strong cyber risk controls, culture and overall cyber hygiene.