California Business and commercial insurance trends as I see the California Insurance Market evolve from the perspective of a independent California commercial insurance broker. Industries I have clients in include non-profits, manufacturing, commercial property owners, technology and software to name a few. I'll be discussing the trends in California Workers Compensation, Property Insurance, E&O, Errors and omissions, Directors and officers, D&O, EPLI, and other coverages
Monday, November 10, 2008
California Premium Rates climbing up in 2009?
The insurance industry has seen things this year no one would have ever predicted and most of use feel that their will be more to come. Munich Re, XL, Berkshire Hathaway have all release their most recent revenue reports showing that even the reinsurance market is taking a beating. What does all of this mean if you are a business owner charged with buying commercial insurance? The big thing to understand is that we are in a prolonged soft market for commercial insurance. This means rates for most if not all risks have been extremely low and hopefully business owners have enjoyed these low rates while the economy has been tough.
However the soft market is cyclical and is based on reinsurance rates, returns on investments made by the carriers, catastrophic events and number of other factors. It is becoming evident that this soft market will be changing and probably very quickly. Renewals that took place in October and November held with the trends from the last 18 months, some even renewed lower than last year or where gobbled up by hungry competitors. This is a good market to shop while carriers still have capacity, once the hard market sets in shopping around will not be nearly this easy and rates will rise sharply. Business owners in California are going to be hit from all sides in 2009 with projected tax increase, economy challenges and the purpose of writing about the hit that is coming in the commercial insurance market is to help prepare not issues a gloomy forcast. Hopefully California businesses will take an opportunity to get a quote and get in a commercial insurance broker that they trust. Let me know if I can help.
