Everest Re likes Florida pricing, need not trim capacity mid-year

Everest Re is prepared to hold its commitment to the Florida property reinsurance market stable year on year if the current trend of rate adequacy holds, even though tort reforms have yet to prove their merit, a top company official has indicated.

“The economics should be outstanding,” Everest Re’s group COO and head of Everest Reinsurance, Jim Williamson (pictured), told his company’s first quarter earnings call.

He roughly expects the modelled return to exceed what the group saw in the 1/1 reinsurance renewals even if the headline rate gain falls short of the 1/1 mark as market hardening was already becoming very palpable in the 2022 mid-years, he indicated.

“If that holds, we will continue to deploy a similar level of capital to that market as in the prior year,” Williamson said.

Everest Re writes “almost exclusively” in excess of loss formats “and I don’t expect that mix to change,” Williamson said.

Everest Re can deliver into the Florida mid-year renewals without expecting much yet from the series of legislative efforts designed to cut back on Florida’s reputation as a hotbed of litigation against insurers.

Those reforms appear “incredibly constructive” to Williamson, but not yet convincing. “We don’t expect the plaintiff lobby to sit idly by” to watch their livelihood undercut, he said.

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.