Private U.S. property & casualty insurers' net income after taxes dropped to $22.4 billion in nine-months 2017 from $32.1 billion in nine-months 2016 and its overall profitability declined to 4.2% from 6.3%, according to a report from ISO, a Verisk business, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).
Related: PCI urges insurers to steer the industry's future
|Hurricanes drive losses in 2017
In the first nine months of 2017, earned premiums grew 3.6% to $404.9 billion, while loss and loss adjustment expenses (LLAE) rose 11.3% to $311.6 billion. LLAE growth in 2017 was driven by catastrophe losses, as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria struck the U.S. in the third quarter, and that was after already above-average catastrophes for the first six months of 2017.
Net underwriting losses jumped to $20.9 billion in nine-months 2017 from $1.7 billion a year earlier. While estimates of the insured losses from the three hurricanes are not finalized, ISO estimates that private U.S. insurers' net underwriting losses from catastrophes as reflected in their statutory statements for nine-months 2017 were between $36 billion and $40 billion.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Denny Jacob
Denny Jacob is an associate editor for NU PropertyCasualty360. Contact him at [email protected].
