Business Insurance

September 9, 2013

Commercial lines insurance prices continued their trend of steady increases during the second quarter of 2013, according to Towers Watson & Co.'s most recent Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey, increasing by 6% over prices during the same period in 2012.

The pricing information reported by insurers for this year's second quarter was consistent in magnitude with the price increases reported for the last five quarters, Towers Watson said, with prices overall and by line of business largely consistent with the price increases seen during 2013's first quarter.

The largest price increases during the second quarter were in workers compensation and employment practices liability lines, Towers Watson said, with no line of business having an overall price increase of less than 4%.

Towers Watson said price increases were seen across all sizes of accounts for standard commercial lines coverage during the second quarter, with larger increases seen on middle-market accounts than on large or small accounts. Prices for specialty lines coverage continued to increase at nearly the same rate as those for standard lines during the April-June period, according to the report.

CLIPS data is based on information about both new and renewing business Towers Watson obtains directly from the insurers underwriting the business. Participating insurers represent a cross section of U.S. property/casualty insurers, Towers Watson said, with 40 insurers representing approximately 20% of the U.S. commercial insurance market (excluding state workers compensation funds) participating in the most recent survey.

It's not a surprise that workers compensation premium rates had the largest increase. It can also be expected that overall commercial rates are up 6% because rates seem to be skyrocketing everywhere. Here at Apex Services, workers compensation premium recovery has been booming over the past several months, which means that employers are seeing some very rapid workers comp premium increases and are looking for some very fast help. We've gotten emails and phone calls from controllers, CFO's, and finance executives who are really concerned about the type of increases that they've never seen before. We're happy that our expertise is really paying off by showing significant workers compensation refunds for employers nationwide. Of course, many of these referrals are from brokers that want to give their clients the maximum savings to show them that they'll stop at nothing to help maintain their clients and win new business.