Brown & Brown’s Market Trends allows you to connect quickly to key topics and notable updates in the insurance marketplace. Dive deeper on any topic with our Brown & Brown team to better understand how these trends may impact your business. We welcome the conversation.

Property

The commercial property insurance and reinsurance marketplaces stabilized in 2024 due to positive underwriting results underpinned by previous years’ discipline in capacity deployment, risk pricing and attachment point selection. The market faces challenges in 2025, resulting in volatility, particularly for catastrophe-exposed property and risks with historic claim activity.

In the first quarter of 2025, primary carriers are anticipated to be selective while trying to meet growth objectives. Moderate to noticeable competition will continue for accounts with favorable loss histories, good loss mitigation programs and low exposure to catastrophic risks, such as wind, hail, named storms or wildfire. For catastrophe-exposed accounts, carriers will show interest if premium levels are deemed attractive and adequate.

Property insurance rates are expected to continue the trend of 2024 and soften further in 2025. Actual rate changes can vary widely from account to account, depending on occupancy class and level of catastrophe exposure. Single carrier placements will likely experience different results from shared and layered insurance arrangements, with more volatility expected in the working layers. More benign portfolios should expect rate changes of -5% to +5%, while riskier portfolios could anticipate -10% to +10%. Increased capacity entering the market will lead to more carrier flexibility regarding coverage terms.

The inflationary pressures on insurable values have eased, with moderate single-digit year-overyear increases deemed sufficient for all but the most undervalued portfolios. Reinsurance treaty renewals for this year are expected to be stable, mainly due to profitable results and a strong reinsurance capital position in the marketplace. Reinsurers will remain committed to transferring catastrophic risk to primary insurers, which has been successful in recent years. Underwriting for individual accounts will focus on catastrophic risk exposures, insurance to value adequacy and property risk control measures. Marketing a given insurance into the global marketplace will be critical to achieving adequate terms for complex carriers.

Casualty

General Liability

Overall, general liability rates have increased and stabilized in the single digits. A continued increase in claims costs, driven by social inflation and other economic factors, leads carriers to review pricing adequacy for high-frequency and severity liability exposures. Carriers will continue scrutinizing liability risks in legal jurisdictions with prevalent nuclear verdicts. Underwriters remain conservative in construction, hospitality, retail and real estate/habitational exposure. These industries face higher scrutiny due to the inherent risk exposures and the significant litigation potential.

Umbrella/Excess

The auto and general liability insurance marketplace issues overlap with the umbrella/excess liability coverage experience. Claim trends push underwriters to review an account’s risk management procedures. In many cases, accounts must increase attachment points and decrease limits to manage spending. The appetite of many carriers continues to decrease, resulting in more carriers with smaller limits in excess liability towers.

Workers’ Compensation

The workers’ compensation marketplace continues to be competitive for well-performing accounts. Many carriers leverage the work comp placement to balance writing general/auto and umbrella lines; of note, the upward trend in medical claims costs continues to be observed by carriers, who are watching closely to ensure adequate pricing. The insured’s performance, attention to safety and risk control, employee training and adequate staffing are all factors weighing the future of workers’ compensation rates.

Commercial Auto

Commercial auto remains one of the most challenging lines for carriers to produce profitable underwriting results. After years of rate increases, claim development continues to outpace premiums. Continued rate increases and the push for insureds to take increased deductibles are expected to continue. The high cost of auto repairs due to technology innovations and increased labor costs are causing carriers to underwrite physical damage deductibles. Owned, hired and non-owned auto risk management controls are essential factors in the underwriting process and are mandatory for complying with underwriting requirements. The marketplace for accounts with significant hired and non-owned auto exposure is minimal. Many carriers aim to decrease their volatility by utilizing facultative and treaty reinsurance; however, new restrictions limit how much a carrier can write.

Property & Casualty Team