Insurance rates around the world fell for the 14th consecutive quarter - although the level of decline continued to be moderate in the past three months, international broker Marsh had revealed.
The Marsh Global Index stood at 0.908 from July to September, dropping to a new low from 0.915 in the previous quarter.
However, the rate of decline in global insurance prices moderated on average for the third consecutive quarter to 3.2%, improving from 3.6% in the previous quarter.
“The continued availability of capacity in the insurance market has generally kept pricing stable to competitive in most lines of business and geographies worldwide,” Marsh said.
“The third quarter of 2016 is the third consecutive one that this rate of decline has moderated,” added Dean Klisura, global industry specialties and placement leader at Marsh. “This follows an above average level of catastrophe losses in the first half of 2016.”
In the UK, the insurance market remained competitive across all major coverage lines with flat renewal rates on average in the third quarter. Composite renewal rate fell by 4.8%, unchanged from last quarter though it was still the highest decline recorded among all regions.
Marsh noted that the UK’s decision to leave the European Union has yet to impact insurance pricing.
In the US, composite renewal rate shrank by 3.1%, improving from last quarter’s 3.9% decrease. Financial and professional liability lines experienced the lowest rate of decline while property lines suffered the greatest level of decline.
In other regions, the rates slipped by 3.0% in both Continental Europe and Asia Pacific and 3.5% in Latin America.
Broken down by sector, the global property renewal rate decreased by 3.9%, the global FinPro renewal rate dipped by 2.9%, while the global casualty renewal rate went down by 2.4%.
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