U.S. p&c industry regained ground, but not fully recovered in 2009

The U.S. property and casualty industry’s net income nearly tripled in 2009 to $35 billion, reports Highline Data Performance Monitor.
The Performance Monitor aggregates financial data reported by individual insurance companies each quarter.
Highline attributes the steep rise in net income to the absence of major catastrophes during 2009, giving p&c insurers “their biggest decline in net losses incurred, 11.3%, in the past ten years.”
While insurers entered 2010 in better shape than 2009, they were still behind where they were in recent years on many key measures, a Highline release says.
“Despite their impressive gains in 2009, the $35 billion in net income for property and casualty insurers was still less than half that seen in 2006, $73.2 billion.”
While the combined ratio for the p&c industry decreased to 101.3% in 2009 from a high of 105.1% during the prior year, it is still above the break even point, Highline noted.
“Our findings suggest that property and casualty companies will continue to strive to contain expenses and further reduce their combined ratios while life companies will continue to rebuild capital and improve investment yields this year,” said Laurie Dallaire, vice president and director of Highline Data.