Travelers Hit with Nuclear Verdict; Auto-Owners Dinged
Welcome to this week's News Brief, our recap of the week's top stories in commercial lines.
- A jury has decided Travelers Insurance must pay almost $38 million in damages in the case of a Missouri man who was wrongfully convicted of murder. The insurer failed to fork over payment after he won a previous lawsuit, claiming the events occurred before its insurance policy took effect.
- Auto-Owners Insurance has been hit with a downgrade from ratings agency AM Best as problems in its private auto insurance lines weigh down the overall company, which has a large presence in the commercial P&C sector. AM Best blamed "cumulative weakened underwriting performance since 2022." The company, a top-30 commercial insurer, still has high ratings from AM Best despite the downgrades, and the agency said the carrier has been taking steps to improve its financial standing.
- Curious which job roles are the hardest to fill in commercial lines? We talked to recruiters and came up with the ones that take the longest.
- When it comes to Q3 underwriting results, more big commercial insurers are reporting deterioration — as opposed to improvement — in their combined ratios on a year-over-year basis. Among the 16 U.S. commercial insurers that disclosed their Q3 earnings results at the time of our analysis, 63% of the peer group saw their combined ratios worsen in Q3 when compared to the same time last year. Table below is a snapshot of full table.
Table of the Week
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