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The Surplus Lines Stamping Office of Texas (SLTX) has combined the results of the 15 excess and surplus lines (E&S) stamping offices across the US to produce a mid-year summary report, which found that combined E&S premiums for the period reached $17.9 billion.
The figure represents a 12.68% increase over H1 2018, SLTX reported. The report also noted that 14 out of the 15 service office states all experienced premium increases, while 13 recorded policy filing increases.
The states which saw the highest E&S premium increases were Minnesota (24.6%), Arizona (21.2%), North Carolina (18.9%), California (18.2%), and Idaho (15.7%). While there are a number of reasons for the increases, the report suggested that both Minnesota and California saw leaps partially due to late policies filed last year that came into effect this year.
Five other states managed to report double-digit increases as well: Mississippi (14.3%), Florida (14.2%), Texas (13.4%), Illinois (11.3%), and Oregon (11.1%).
The one state that saw a slight premium decrease was Nevada, dropping 1.49%.
SLTX also found that there were “modest” filing decreases of E&S policies recorded for the first half of 2019, which were attributed to timing/filing differences for agents/brokers. States that saw slight drops in their filing included Illinois (0.22%) and Minnesota (1.09%).
“The slight reductions are not significant enough to be of concern; however, overall, the mid-year report from our business partners and peers support a number of different factors, all of which include robust state economies, consumer driven need (buyers & risk managers), expanded capacity of the surplus lines market, and a major reason – rate increases,” commented SLTX CEO Norma Essary.
