Total premiums across all lines increase 5.4% in 2017, NAIC report finds
August 14, 2018 by Brian Anderson
Just five states account for more than 40% of all insurance premiums in the United States, and total premiums increased by more than five percent in 2017 compared to 2016, according to new data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
The NAIC released the second volume of the 31st edition of the Insurance Department Resources Report on Aug. 6. The IDRR is intended to help state insurance departments assess their resources in comparison to other states, but the data also provides some good perspective on the state of the industry in general.
The IDRR Volume One (PDF) — published in July — included data on staffing, budgeting and examination information, while Volume Two focuses on premium data. In addition, it provides ratios that demonstrate the relationships between the budget, revenue and premium data. It includes admitted premium by state, by line of business; excess and surplus lines premium; and relational statistics including budget as a percentage of revenues, budget as a percentage of premiums and revenues as a percentage of premiums.
Volume Two shows premiums increased by 5.4% in 2017 to nearly $2.3 trillion. As far as the states with the most premiums written in all lines, in order of premium volume, the leader by far was California, followed by New York, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. These five states accounted for 40.2% of all insurance premiums in the United States. Interestingly, California’s premium total was $172.5 billion greater than the second-largest 2017 premium (New York). States with the smallest total premium volumes were North Dakota, Montana, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming.
A breakdown of written premium volume by line of business in Volume Two reveals that Health Insurance (43%) and Life/Annuities (29.7%) each provide more premium volume than Property/Casualty (26.2%).
Free access to the complete Volume Two report can be found at this link.
Top 10 states by 2017 Premium Volume
- California – $339,880,531,962
- New York – $167,361,850,575
- Texas – $160,162,581,679
- Florida – $154,894,607,731
- Pennsylvania – $100,169,586,484
- Ohio – $84,354,610,356
- Illinois – $82,396,298,518
- New Jersey – $74,240,054,377
- Delaware – $70,895,026,000
- Michigan – $68,985,980,280
About the NAIC: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is the U.S. standard-setting and regulatory support organization created and governed by the chief insurance regulators from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. Through the NAIC, state insurance regulators establish standards and best practices, conduct peer review, and coordinate their regulatory oversight. NAIC staff supports these efforts and represents the collective views of state regulators domestically and internationally. NAIC members, together with the central resources of the NAIC, form the national system of state-based insurance regulation in the U.S. For more information, visit www.naic.org.
