What Analysts Are Saying About the 2026 P/C Insurance Market

 Following in the footsteps of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, analysts from Fitch Ratings and Morningstar weighed in with these P/C insurance market forecasts in the past week:

• “Fitch Ratings expects the U.S. property/casualty market to continue softening in 2026, with increased competition, abundant capital and downward pricing pressure.
• “Despite the high number of litigations and escalating payouts, the U.S. casualty insurance market is still an attractive market because of its size, product and regional diversity, and pricing flexibility,” according to Morningstar.
• “We expect casualty insurance pricing to remain divergent from the rest of the P&C insurance market in the near term,” said Victor Adesanya, Morningstar’s Senior Vice President, Global Insurance & Pension Ratings.
• “Overall, we do not anticipate softening rates in the P/C market to pressure credit ratings, as most insurers benefit from diversification in their product mix and geographic footprint and can still increase their casualty insurance rates.”
• “Insurers will face slowing revenue growth given the easing rate environment amid macroeconomic uncertainty,” Fitch says.
• In property-catastrophe reinsurance, softening market conditions will “continue at the midyear 2026 renewals in April (Asia-focused) and June/July (Florida).”

Read what insurance executives are saying in the related article, “Insurance Groundhogs Warming Up to Market Changes.”

Personal Lines: Shopping and Switching

Separately, J.D. Power provided an early read on whether America’s drivers and homeowners will stay put with their insurers this year or switch to competitors for lower prices.

For the most part, shopping and switching rates were down slightly in the fourth quarter of 2025 except for residential property owners and renters, who are increasingly shopping but not switching carriers, according to latest Loyalty Indicator & Shopping Trends (LIST) report from J.D. Power, conducted in collaboration with TransUnion.

The most notable change evident from the figures in the report relates to policyholders shopping for new renters insurance. Those customers switched much less frequently in fourth-quarter 2025 than they did in prior time periods.

Averages compiled by Carrier Management from monthly shopping and switching percentages shown the LIST report reveals these findings:

Auto insurance: Both shopping and switching rates are down. The overall fourth-quarter 2025 shopping rate was 13.0%, down 0.2 points from third-quarter 2025 and 0.4 points from fourth-quarter 2024.