A recent analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence reveals that the pace of growth in the U.S. excess and surplu
s lines market slowed to 13.4% in 2024, down from 14.5% a year earlier.
While growth stayed up in double digits for both years, the jumps paled
ed in comparison to a 32.3% rate of growth recorded in 2021, according to the S&P GMI “2025 U.S. Exc
ess & Surplus Market Report” published earlier this month.
Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence “2025 U.S. Excess & Surplus Market Report”
“The E&S market continues to grow at a faster pace than the U.S. P/C industry as a whole, even as its pace of expansion
sion slowed in 2024,” said Tim Zawacki, principal insurance analyst, S&P Global Market Intelligence. Earlier this year, S&P
GMI reported that overall P/C premiums—across standard and E&S business—grew by 8% in 2024.
This story was originally published in Insurance Journal’s sister publication, Carrier Management.
Related: $1 Trillion! 2024 P/C Industry Direct Premiums At Record Level
See more beautiful photo albums Here >>>
Berkshire, Progressive Are 2024 Underwriting Profit Leaders
Boost Prices or Retreat? How Carriers Improved Homeowners Books in 2024
Focusing on E&S premiums, Zawacki noted that national growth in the E&S residential and commercial property l
ines moderated in 2024, increasing by 15.4%, compared to the over 20% year-over-year growth rates observed in each of the prior five years. “Weakness in commercial property rates in catastrophe-expo
sed geographies could lead to a continued slowing in the E&S market’s expansion in 2025,” Zawacki said.
In spite of the diminishing E&S growth last year, 2024 was still the sixth straight year of double-digit growth overall
(across all lines), S&P GMI says in its “2025 U.S. Excess & Surplus Market report,” which also shows changes in E&S market share and growth rates for each of the last 20 years, lists the top 25 E&S writers in 2024, and de
livers information on leaders (top 10) and 2024 E&S market share by line and state.
For full-year 2024, the U.S. E&S direct premiums written reached nearly $100 billion—coming in at $98.2 billion across all lines, up from $86.6 billion in 2023 and $75.5 billion
n in 2022. As in the prior years, the bulk of E&S premiums in 2024 were written within various liability coverages (51.3 billion, or 52.2%), several property lines of business ($31.7 billion, or 32.3%) and commercial auto ($5.7 billion, or 5.8%).
E&S premiums represent 9.5% of the U.S. total direct premiums written in 2024.
What's Driving the Slowdown?
The line-of-business reports included in S&P GMI’s analysis reveal that the 15.4 percent jump in E&S premiums for commercial property and homeowners lines in 2024 marks the slowest pace of growth since 2018 (9.3%). In 2023, the E&S property growth rate had surged to 40.6%. In contrast, E&S liability premium growth, after slowing to 4.3% in 2023, returned to double-digit growth in 2024. The overall 2024 E&S liability growth rate was 12.4% across four lines (other liability-claims made, other liability-occurrence, medical professional and product liability)
Analyzing top players in the various lines, S&P GMI found that Berkshire Hathaway Group, the second biggest E&S property writer (behind STARR Cos.)—and the largest writer across all E&S lines—actually shrunk its E&S property premiums 1.5% to $4.0 billion across four property lines (fire, allied, commercial multi-peril/non-liability and homeowners) in 2024. Contributing to the decline, Berkshire’s E&S Allied lines premiums fell by 17.1% to $1.5 billion, according to S&P GMI’s calculations. In contrast, in 2023, Berkshire's E&S premiums for allied lines had soared by 66.4%.
