Taking the temperature: where do P&C rates go from here?

You do not need to wait for the passage of time and the clarity of hindsight to acknowledge that 2020 was a year which changed everything.

The world has run out of superlatives to describe the social, economic, and political cost of the coronavirus pandemic, with even the green shoots of recovery currently emerging through the rubble threatened by the onset of yet another variant to the disease.

For the US and Bermudian re/insurance world, 2020 will in some ways be a year to forget.

The combination of the socio-economic chaos of the pandemic and a series of catastrophe losses eroded much of the industry’s profitability, and that is to say nothing of the various lawsuits related to lockdowns and business closures currently working their way through the courts.

The volatility has elicited a reaction in pricing, with rates rising across lines and a deepening sense after three consecutive years of price hikes that the industry has entered a longer hard market.

Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers president and chief executive officer John Huff, speaking on a panel session with the Re/insurance Lounge, Intelligent Insurer’s online, on-demand platform for interviews and panel discussions with leaders in the industry, said that the association’s members were in broad agreement that rates were still rising as we head into the second half of 2021.