Texas Surplus Lines Premiums Reach a Record-Breaking $877.51M in March

SLTX recorded a record-breaking $877.51M in premium for March, with a total of $2.00B year-to-date. This results in a 40.9% increase in premiums over March 2020, and a 20.1% increase in YTD premiums when compared to the same period in 2020. March premium is the largest single month ever reported in SLTX’s 33-year history, exceeding the $772.8M record set in May 2020 by more than $100 million!

This increase was not specifically related to any new insurers or new trends in coverages. The increase is primarily attributed to the top 5 or 6 insurers and brokers and it continues to reflect the current hard-market conditions. While multiple coverage lines reflected large increases, these are all in alignment with the overall increase for the month. Secondarily, SLTX data analysis noted that at least 8% of the total premium can be attributed to renewals which were historically reported in later months. SLTX also identified that the transactions reported were primarily Renewals while another factor affecting the total was fewer cancellations and reversals reported when compared to the same period in 2020. Both of these factors can have a considerable impact on the premiums reported.

We also assume that any transactions which were not filed during the state-wide power outage in February would have been filed in March, although the exact impact (premium or items) is difficult to quantify considering the 60-day timely filing requirement.

March 2021 reflected a 6.2% increase in the overall number of transactions filed (98.681) over the same period in 2020, resulting in a 4.8% decrease in the overall transactions filed YTD. This same period also reflected a 3.0% increase in policies filed (64,944), and yet even with the March 2021 increases resulted in a 7.4% decrease in policies filed YTD.

Moving forward, there are no indications that the Texas surplus lines premiums will continue this significant upward trend. SLTX will continue to monitor the Texas surplus lines market, as well as the national market, and share additional data as it is recorded.