US property cat rates hit record-high, ~97% up since 2017: Guy Carpenter

Property catastrophe reinsurance rates-on-line in the United States have reached a record-high, according to the latest data from broker Guy Carpenter.

Guy Carpenter’s U.S. Property Catastrophe Rate-On-Line Index, a broad measure of catastrophe reinsurance pricing in the key United States marketplace, rose 30.1% at the January 2023 renewals.

The U.S. Property Rate on Line Index from Guy Carpenter is a proprietary index of US property catastrophe reinsurance Rate-on-Line movements.

The data is sourced from real, brokered excess-of-loss reinsurance placements. Guy Carpenter has maintained this index since 1990, making it the longest-standing source of insight into US cat reinsurance pricing.

The Index is updated after the January 1st renewals and then again at the July 1 renewals, each year and is calculated by analysing the change in reinsurance rate-on-line (RoL) year on year across the same renewal base.

As a result, the current Index level for 2023 is only based on the US property cat reinsurance pricing from the January renewal season, so remains preliminary.

For full-year 2022, this Index rose by 14.8%, which took the US property catastrophe reinsurance rate-on-line Index back at its highest level since 2009.

Now, with the pricing from the January 2023 reinsurance renewals also factored in as a 30.1% increase in RoL, the Guy Carpenter U.S. Property Catastrophe Rate-On-Line Index has reached an all-time-high.

Perhaps more impressive is the cumulative increase in US property catastrophe reinsurance rates-on-line since the bottom of the last soft market, which occurred in 2017.

Since then, this Index has risen by approximately 97%, a truly significant reversal of the cheap reinsurance pricing seen at that stage, after the years of softening that preceded it.

At 30.1%, the increase this Index has seen at January 2023’s renewals was not the largest increase ever seen. This Index rose 76% in 2006, in the wake of hurricane Katrina, which remains the biggest annual jump in rate-on-line recorded by Guy Carpenter.

But, the significant 97% cumulative increase since 2017 reflects the need for higher returns to be earned in reinsurance, as both traditional and alternative markets realised the softening had perhaps gone too far.

You can analyse this reinsurance rate-on-line data from Guy Carpenter using our interactive chart.