Texas Surplus Lines Premiums Reach a Record-Breaking $884.75M in May

SLTX recorded a record-breaking $884.75M in premium for May, with a total of $3.63B year-to-date. This results in a 14.5% increase in premiums over May 2020, and a 14.2% increase in YTD premiums when compared to the same period in 2020. May 2021 is the largest single-month ever reported in SLTX’s 33-year history, exceeding the $772.88M record set in May 2020 by nearly $112 million! May premium also exceeds SLTX’s most recent record-breaking month (March 2021) by more than $7 million!

Various lines of business experienced notable growth over May 2020, with the largest increase attributed to Excess /Umbrella coverage, which rose almost $28M (or 23.9%). Additionally, Commercial Auto Liability coverage reflected a $24M (or 132.3%) increase over the same period. Roughly 47% of total premium increases from May 2021 over May 2020 can be attributed to these two coverages. Please note that these calculations are for a single-month period and do not necessarily indicate a market trend.

May 2021 reflected an 8.5% increase in the overall number of transactions filed (90,794) over the same period in 2020, resulting in a 0.5% decrease in the overall transactions filed YTD. This same period also reflected a 4.1% increase in policies filed (61,441), and yet even with this and earlier month’s increases, resulted in a 3.4% decrease in policies filed YTD.

Continuing with the YTD trend, the majority of the premium reported in May can be attributed to renewal policies (61%) yet accounted for only 37% of the items reported. Secondarily, 36% of premium (and 30% of the items) reported is related to new business while the remaining 3% is a result of non-policy transactions such as endorsements, cancellations, audits, installments, etc.

SLTX expects Texas surplus lines premiums to continue to trend with the existing hard-market conditions during the upcoming summer renewal cycle. SLTX will continue to monitor the Texas surplus lines market, as well as the national market, and share additional data as it is recorded.