Commercial property/casualty insurance prices may have peaked, according to Barclays Capital Inc.'s most recent six-month buyers' survey.

The early 2014 survey of 75 risk managers showed commercial P/C prices expected to increase 1% from the same period last year, down from a 2% year-over-year increase expected in Barclays' survey six months ago.

Nearly all respondents characterized the P/C market as stable, according to Barclays, with property prices expected to be flat compared with anticipated 2% increases six months ago and buyers expecting 1% increases for liability lines, down from an anticipated 2% increase in the last survey.

Of those surveyed, 56% anticipated rate increases, down from 73% in the mid-year 2013 survey, while 27% anticipated flat renewals, up from 19% six months ago. The 17% anticipating rate decreases was the highest percentage in the survey since midyear 2013 and was up from 8% six months ago.

Only 4% of the risk managers surveyed see the catastrophe-exposed property market as hard, consistent with the midyear 2013 findings, with 95% seeing the catastrophe-exposed property market as stable, down from 96% six months ago. One respondent in the early 2014 survey characterized the cat-exposed property market as soft, the first time any risk manager had done so since the midyear 2011 survey.

In the latest survey, 92% of respondents said policy terms and conditions were stable compared with a year ago, unchanged from the last survey, while the percentage saying terms and conditions had loosened increased slightly to 3% and 5% reported terms and conditions tightening, down from 7% six months ago.

A vast majority of those surveyed — 85% — said brokers' fees should be the same in 2014 as in 2013, up from 74% in the last survey, with 9% anticipating higher fees, down from 19% six months ago, and 5% expecting lower fees, down from 7% in the midyear 2013 survey.

The proprietary Barclays survey is based on telephone interviews with risk managers from 75 U.S. and Canadian companies, with an emphasis on the Fortune 1000 and other large organizations.