A survey has indicated that American commercial policy rates have increased just slightly.
The results of a new survey that was conducted by Towers Watson & Co. has revealed that the price of commercial property insurance in the United States rose slightly during the first quarter of 2012.
It also indicated that business employment practices liability and workers compensation rose during that time.
The rise that was experienced in the commercial property insurance rates from the last quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013 was – according to Towers Watson in a press release – in the “mid single digits”. This represented a smaller growth than had been predicted for this sector of the industry.
Following Hurricane Sandy, many though that property insurance rates would increase by far more.
According to the Towers Watson P&C sales and practice leader for the Americas, Tom Hettinger, “Interestingly, pricing for property grew only modestly, with less movement than might have been expected considering losses related to Hurricane Sandy.” However, he added that “That is not surprising, as there is plenty of reinsurance capacity out there.”
Towers Watson pointed out in its most recent Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey (CLIPS) that in aggregate commercial insurance prices experienced a rise of nearly 7 percent in this year’s first quarter. This includes property insurance as well as other common business coverage products.
The data used by Towers Watson in order to produce its CLIPS results are from both new and renewal figures from an American P&C carrier “cross section”. The results of the survey were released this week and provided a comparison of the prices that had been charged on the policies that were written during Q1 2013, noting how they changed from the prices for the same coverage in Q4 2012.
The survey data from this year took in the statistics from 40 different carriers that make up approximately 20 percent of the American commercial property insurance market. It did not include state workers compensation funds in its comparison of that coverage. The increases in prices were noted across all sizes of accounts for standard commercial lines.
