Global price increases for commercial insurance continue to slow

Global commercial insurance prices rose 11% in the first quarter, Marsh LLC said in its latest Global Insurance Market Index, released on Wednesday.

This marked the 18th consecutive quarter of increases, but was the fifth consecutive quarter in which global pricing slowed since it peaked at 22% in the fourth quarter of 2020, Marsh said.

Slower growth rates in financial and professional lines led to moderate prices in most geographic areas during the quarter, Marsh said.

However, interest rate hikes for these routes continue to outperform the real estate and accident lines on a global basis, driven primarily by cyber pricing, with average rate hikes of 26% during the quarter, compared to 7% for real estate and 4% for accidents,

Cyber ​​continued to counteract the overall downward trend in interest rates, with significant rate hikes of 110% in the US and 102% in the UK for the quarter, Marsh said.

In the US, average interest rate hikes were 12%, down from 14% in the fourth quarter of 2021. US property insurance price increases during the quarter remained unchanged at 7%, as well as claims by 4%, while pricing on financial and professional lines slowed to 28%, a decrease from 34% in the previous quarter.

Latin America and the Caribbean were the only regions to see interest rate hikes accelerate, climbing to 6% in the quarter, up from 4% in the fourth quarter.