Personal lines carriers climb S&P GMI 2024 US P&C rankings driven by premium growth

By Ashish Tiwari

July 18 - (The Insurer) - Personal lines insurers advanced in S&P Global Market Intelligence's 2024 U.S. property and casualty performance rankings as a result of premium growth that outpaced losses in auto and homeowners space.

While commercial carriers continued to dominate the list, personal lines companies accounted for 12 of the top 50 firms, up from three in 2023.

Progressive, American Family Insurance, Mercury General and Berkshire Hathaway were in the top 10.

"Both personal auto and homeowners businesses benefited from significant tailwinds from a rate standpoint," said Tim Zawacki, principal research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence. "But we also saw significant moderation in loss costs, particularly in personal auto, which had previously faced a challenging inflationary environment."

Kinsale Capital Group held on to the top spot for the third year, fueled by asset and surplus growth above 30% and returns among the best in the study. Its return on average assets were at 12.17% and for that of equity was at 35.35%.

Commercial insurers Assurant and Intact Financial followed in the second and third spots.

Commercial insurers represented 56% of the 100 largest P&C firms but 76% of the top 50 in the rankings.

However, 2024 was a recovery year for personal lines. Premium growth in private auto and homeowners outpaced losses, lifting underwriting profitability.

Net premiums written in auto were up 12.8% while losses were nearly flat. Homeowners premiums rose 13.8% with a 2.2% drop in incurred losses.

The rebound helped bring combined ratios below the breakeven 100% mark, to 95.3% for personal auto and 99.7% for homeowners, after several years of underwriting losses, S&P said.

However, the outlook for next year is more cautious. "We would expect a significantly higher loss from the wildfires to show up in the 2025 financials for personal lines," Zawacki said. "That impacts our outlook for the coming year. We expect profitability to be lower for the industry as a whole."

The rankings were calculated based on the financial results of these insurers, which were compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The calculations are based on 13 profitability metrics of the companies under review, including rates of return, underwriting profitability, balance sheet expansion, investment performance, prior-accident-year reserve development and premium growth.