Property/casualty price hikes ebbed in fourth quarter: CIAB

Last year ended with a slight slowdown of commercial property/casualty insurance price increases, according to the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers’ quarterly Commercial P/C Market Index Survey, released Tuesday.

On average, prices rose for large, medium and small accounts at a rate of 2.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with 3.4% in the third quarter of 2013, according to the Washington-based council’s survey.

In general, the larger the account, the smaller the rate of increase: Large accounts reported average increases of 1.4%, while small accounts registered average 2.6% increases, according to the survey.

“We didn’t see any significant changes last quarter, which is not surprising,” council President and CEO Ken A. Crerar said in a statement.

“Underwriting seems to have remained disciplined,” he said. “It appears that new capacity in the market, such as the arrival of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, helped dampen pricing a bit last quarter. That, and the fact that catastrophe exposures were low, added up to a more stable pricing environment overall.”