The commercial insurance industry may be looking to buck a trend of falling rates, but losses from Hurricane Matthew seem less likely to be the kind of catastrophic event to turn the market.
As Hurricane Matthew approached Florida late last week, some catastrophe modelers estimated losses of $30 billion from what was a raging Category 4 storm.
Gary Marchitello, head of property broking at Willis Towers Watson, told Advisen a loss event such as the one originally predicted for Matthew could have swung the market.
“Underwriters are worn out by steadily decreasing rates with no bottom in sight,” Marchitello said. “They wish it could turn.”
Due to ample capacity in the insurance marketplace, anything less than $30 billion event will not have a material impact. A series of large-loss events could also change rates, Marchitello added. October has historically been a busy hurricane month, so the market will be closely watching the rest of hurricane season.
In the immediate future carriers will be “skittish to renew business” until the insurance industry better understands the losses from Matthew, Marchitello said.
This story in an excerpt of the original. The content originally appeared in Professional Front Page News.
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Erin is the managing editor of Advisen’s Front Page News. She has been covering property-casualty insurance since 2000. Previously, Erin served as editor-in-chief of The Standard, New England’s Insurance Weekly. Erin is based in Boston, Mass. Contact Erin at [email protected].
