The P&C Pricing Picture: Rates
Year of Staggered, Unsteady Tra
AVERAGE COMMERCIAL-INSURANCE RATE DECREASE/INCREA
- 5
- 5
- 5
- 4
- 4
- 4
December
2010
January
2011
February
2011
March
2011
April
2011
May
2011
TWO STEPS forward, one step back: For every couple of events that augured a definitive swing to a hard market this
year—a major catastrophe here, increasing
combined ratios there—some other factor
contributed to helping keep prices soft,
whether it was fear over the eurozone debt
crisis or underwriters willing to heavily
discount new business.
But while the pace of change has been
staggered and unsteady—and is still by no
means universal across all lines—there is
little doubt that the market has undergone
a significant transition in 2011.
In January, market conditions could be
summed up as mostly soft, with pockets of
flattening prices. By September/October,
the consensus was the overall market had
finally hit bottom. And by November,
the pricing picture could be described as
upward bound, if barely so, for the first
time in eons—or at least since 2005.
In the pages of NU and on our
PropertyCasualty360.com Web site,
we wrote this year literally hundreds
of articles—daily, sometimes hourly—
on the soft/flat/(maybe) hardening
market, as analysts, CEOs, the occasional
- 3
June
2011
-2
July
2011
-2
August
2011
“The markets
seem to be a bit
schizophrenic.
Some parts are
up; other parts
are down.”
Marty Hughes, chairman
and CEO of broker Hub
International
