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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
The nation's largest workers compensation writer released its 2011 fourth-quarter results earlier this month and showed a substantial change in workers comp premiums from a year earlier.
Liberty Mutual Holding Co. Inc.'s workers comp net written premium increased $134 million in the 4th quarter of 2011 and rose $17 million for the entire year.
Ending the year up $17 million in workers comp net written premium doesn't seem like much, but consider what was happening the year before.
Liberty Mutual's workers comp net written premium fell $213 million during the 4th quarter of 2010 while dropping $327 million in for all of 2010.
Now you see the contrast.
For its 2010 losses the insurer reported that it workers comp premium decreases were primarily driven by a decrease in exposures, rate reductions, and the impact of continued competitive market conditions among other factors.
But for its 2011 gains, Liberty Mutual cited an increase in audit premiums, higher rates and exposures, and the insurer gained a “significant construction account" with multi-year exposures.
Comp Time hopes that the increase in audit premiums and exposures are signs of the nation's economic improvement. Granted, the rate of improvement has been painfully slow, but it beats the years when audit premiums and exposures were falling.
Now if we could get more people back to work.
As for Liberty Mutual, its overall 2011 results were not good. The insurer's net income for 2011 dropped to $365 million, a 78.2% decrease from a year earlier. The flooding in Thailand played a role.