Best Read Excess Surplus Headlines
Headlines from our Excess Surplus Topic Page with the most time spent reading.
#1 Viewpoint: Earthquake Insurance and Surplus Lines: Clarifying a Legal Grey Zone
Aug 28 2025 // The California property insurance market is undergoing a dramatic shift. As admitted carriers restrict their appetite for business in the state—particularly in high-risk zones—surplus lines insurers are increasingly...
#2 7 Years of Double-Digit Growth; New Players on Top 25 E&S Insurers List
Sep 12 2025 // 2024 marked the 7th straight year of double-digit growth for the U.S. excess and surplus lines market, but the top 25 players no longer command 70 percent of the pie, according to a new report. AM Best’s latest...
#3 Pennsylvania Finally Gets Its $200M Slice of Insurance Association’s Surplus Pie
Aug 21 2025 // Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday recently announced a $200 million transfer of funds from the Professional Liability Joint Underwriting Association (JUA) into the state’s general fund. The transfer was the...
#4 California Surplus Lines Take-Up Soars as Brokers Work to Find Coverage for Clients
Jul 15 2025 // The best way to tell that the California homeowners insurance market has been a bear is to see where buyers facing higher rates and lack of options in traditional markets are going for alternatives. One choice is the...
#5 How Competitive Is E&S Property? Exec Views Vary
Jan 30 2025 // E&S property insurance market conditions were a recurring talking point on two recent earnings conference calls, but the leaders of specialty insurers offering commentary were not perfectly in lockstep in their...
#6 Lloyd’s Focuses on Delegated Authority Arrangements as Looming Market Risk
Oct 3 2024 // While the Lloyd’s market reported its best first-half profit in 17 years, it isn’t resting on its laurels. It is carefully monitoring areas where potential vulnerabilities have been identified. During a recent...
#7 Zurich Insurance Reports Record H1 Profit of $4.2B, Driven by Middle Market, Specialty
Aug 8 2025 // Zurich Insurance Group reported some record numbers during the first half: business operating profit (BOP) was up 6% to a record US$4.2 billion and core return on equity hit a best-ever number of 26.3%. What is the reason...
#8 AmTrust Expands E&S Division, Spins Off Some MGAs With Blackstone
Sep 16 2025 // AmTrust Financial Services has a busy day on Sept. 15 as it expanded its excess & surplus division to include new lines, appointed leadership, and announced an agreement with Blackstone Credit & Insurance to spin...
#9 Fitch Ratings: U.S. E&S Growth Slows but Remains Strong
Sep 12 2025 // Direct written premiums saw double-digit growth for the seventh straight year for U.S. excess and surplus (E&S) insurers, according to Fitch Ratings’ latest annual property/casualty market review. Per a Fitch...
#10 Will California’s FAIR Plan Have Enough Cash for Its Wildfire Claims?
Jan 16 2025 // There has been some question about whether California’s insurer of last resort – the FAIR Plan – has enough cash on hand to pay for its share of wildfire claims. As surplus is inadequate and reinsurance has a...
#11 Markel Insurance CEO Wilson Lays Out Strategy for ‘Bread-and-Butter’ E&S Business
May 13 2025 // “You can’t cut yourself to greatness.” Simon Wilson, chief executive officer of Markel Insurance, made the simple statement at a Markel Group brunch meeting for investors in Omaha, Nebraska on May 4 to...
#12 Ryan Specialty Launches New Sidecar to Support its Delegated Underwriting
Sep 5 2025 // International specialty insurer Ryan Specialty announced the formation of a new collateralized reinsurance vehicle called Ryan Alternative Capital Re, Ltd. (RAC Re) RAC Re will deliver additional capacity to Ryan Specialty...
#13 AIG: Turning One Human Underwriter Into Five, ‘Turbocharging’ E&S
Apr 30 2025 // Some property/casualty insurers talk about experimenting with artificial intelligence to automate call center responses and back-office operations. But that’s not the road to turbocharging growth that AIG CEO Peter...
#14 African Lender Weighs Claiming Lloyd’s Payout on Zambia Debt
Aug 11 2025 // TDB Group, an African trade and development lender, is considering claiming insurance on debt it’s owed by Zambia that has become entangled in a complex restructuring process.The southern African nation, which...
#15 Lloyd’s Reports Combined Ratio of 92.5% on Drop in H1 Underwriting Result
Sep 4 2025 // Lloyd’s first half underwriting result dropped by half to £1.5 billion ($2.0 billion) from £3.1 billion ($4.2 billion) in H1 2024, which was driven primarily by claims from January’s California wildfires. The...
#16 US E&S Growth Slowed Again in ’24; Berkshire, AIG Top Premium Rankings
Jun 26 2025 // A recent analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence reveals that the pace of growth in the U.S. excess and surplus lines market slowed to 13.4% in 2024, down from 14.5% a year earlier. While growth stayed up in double...
#17 How Cincinnati Insurance Does E&S
Mar 26 2025 // The Cincinnati Insurance Companies have grown business for 75 years through relationships with a carefully selected set of regional independent agents—and business in the surplus lines segment is no exception, executives...
#18 Lloyd’s Has ‘Laser Focus’ on Oversight of Coverholders to Proactively Avoid Market Risk
May 16 2025 // Lloyd’s has “a laser focus” on the oversight of delegated underwriting authorities to make sure these facilities do not drag down the market in the same way that poor management of managing general agents...
#19 Lloyd’s Loses Bid to Avoid $800K in Prejudgment Interest
May 9 2025 // Lloyd’s of London has been told it must pay an extra $800,000 in prejudgment interest on a $2.5 million building fire loss payment to a community bank that it had wrongly denied coverage. A three-judge panel of the...
#20 WV Commissioner Wants Input on What Coverages Should Be on Surplus Lines List
Aug 28 2025 // The West Virginia Office of the Insurance Commissioner is aking for input on what coverages and classes should be on the surplus lines export list. In keeping with state law, agents and brokers hoping to place types of...
