In this A.M.BestTV episode, A.M. Best Senior Managing Director and Chief Rating Officer Stefan Holzberger reviews highlights from A.M. Best's annual Review/Preview report for the U.S. property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry, including how automobile, homeowners and commercial writers are responding to a challenging underwriting environment and an abundance of capital. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=pc117 to view the entire program.

Two of the three segments within the U.S. P/C industry have a negative outlook, with the exception being personal lines. Holzberger addressed how A.M. Best views the personal lines sector in light of the deteriorating automobile market.

“The main rationale for maintaining a stable outlook for the personal lines companies is the very strong level of risk-adjusted capitalization that A.M. Best believes is more than sufficient to absorb some level of volatile results in terms of personal automobile,” said Holzberger. “Speaking specifically to personal automobile, A.M. Best believes that the trend of negative performance is likely to reverse itself this year. This belief is based on the market having generated reasonably sizable rate increases, gas prices moving back up and improving economic conditions.”

Holzberger also spotlighted the challenges that stand in the way of the P/C sector to either repeat or improve upon its underwriting performance in 2017.

“There is a significant amount of excess capital in the market today across all three segments—personal lines, commercial lines and reinsurance. That is a real benefit from a credit standpoint for policyholder security, but it is driving intense competition. In this market with limited room for growth and limited opportunities to put that capital to work, rates, and essentially, profitability, are being driven down.”

To see Holzberger discuss the life/annuity industry visit http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=lifeannuity117.

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