Property and Casualty Insurance Industry Statistics (2026)
US premiums, combined ratios, catastrophe losses, market size, and the top P&C insurers
The U.S. property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry wrote $975.8 billion in net premiums in 2025, up 5% year over year, and posted a net combined ratio of 92.9, its lowest in more than a decade. The net underwriting gain roughly tripled to about $63 billion. These property and casualty insurance industry statistics, drawn from AM Best, NAIC, Verisk and APCIA, and Triple-I and Milliman data, show an industry that consolidated its recovery in 2025, helped by the first Atlantic hurricane season in 10 years with no U.S. landfall.
Below are the numbers that matter for 2026, organized by market size, profitability, catastrophe exposure, line of business, and the largest carriers.
Property and Casualty Insurance Industry Statistics: Key Numbers (2026)
Based on full-year 2025 results and first-quarter 2026 data:
- Net premiums written (2025, U.S.): $975.8 billion, up 5% (AM Best)
- Direct premiums written by line (2025): $1.11 trillion, up 5% (AM Best)
- Net combined ratio (2025): 92.9, improved from 96.6 in 2024 (Verisk and APCIA; AM Best)
- Net underwriting gain (2025): about $63 billion, up from $23 billion in 2024 (Verisk and APCIA)
- Net income after taxes (2025): $148 billion, down from $169 billion in 2024 (Verisk and APCIA)
- Catastrophe losses (2025): 7.6 points on the combined ratio, down from 8.8 points in 2024 (AM Best)
- Largest carrier: State Farm, $113.8 billion net premiums written in 2025, up 5.6% (AM Best)
- Top 10 carriers: 51.4% of total P&C market share, on NAIC 2024 direct premiums written
- Policyholders’ surplus (year-end 2025): $1.2 trillion, up from $1.1 trillion a year earlier (Verisk and APCIA)
- First-quarter 2026 combined ratio: 92.0, a 7 point improvement year over year (AM Best)
A combined ratio below 100 means an insurer paid out less in claims and expenses than it collected in premiums. At 92.9, the 2025 result clears that mark by more than 7 points.
How Big Is the P&C Insurance Market?
The U.S. P&C market is measured most reliably by premiums, and net premiums written reached $975.8 billion in 2025, up 5%, according to AM Best. On a direct basis, AM Best puts 2025 direct premiums written by line at $1.11 trillion, also up 5%.
Globally, estimates vary by research firm because of differing definitions and currency assumptions. Swiss Re Institute puts the global P&C market at about $2.4 trillion, having doubled over the past 20 years, and forecasts global non-life real premium growth at a cyclical low of 0.6% in 2026 before a modest recovery to about 1% in 2027. Commercial research houses publish figures several times larger on broader definitions. For anything you need to defend, use Swiss Re, NAIC or AM Best.
Two forces drove premium growth through 2024 and into 2025: multi-year rate increases catching up to inflation-driven loss costs, and rising insured values in homes, vehicles, and commercial property. Both are now fading. Growth slowed to 5% in 2025 from 8.7% in 2024, and to 2.9% in the first quarter of 2026.
P&C Industry Profitability: Combined Ratio and Net Income
2025 was the industry’s best underwriting year in over a decade. The net combined ratio of 92.9 was a 3.7 point improvement on 96.6 in 2024, and the largest underwriting profit in ten years.
Profitability improved across most of the market:
- Net underwriting gain roughly tripled, to about $63 billion from $23 billion in 2024
- Personal lines underwriting profit almost quadrupled to $45.7 billion, and commercial lines profit more than doubled to $19.2 billion
- Policyholders’ surplus rose 11.4% to $1.19 trillion, a $122.9 billion increase
- Net income after taxes eased to $148 billion from $169 billion, because 2024 carried larger one-off investment gains
Personal lines drove the turnaround. Personal auto improved again in 2025, to a net combined ratio of 91.8, 3.5 points better than 2024. Homeowners posted 88.1, its strongest underwriting performance in more than ten years, even after the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Commercial lines stayed profitable, and the gap with personal lines narrowed further.
The takeaway for 2026: the profit is real, but it was weather-assisted. Verisk and APCIA attribute the 2025 result more to unusually low catastrophe losses than to any structural shift in risk. Rate increases have now turned into rate decreases, and Triple-I and Milliman forecast a 3.7% contraction in underlying P&C growth in the first half of 2026.
Catastrophe Losses and Their Impact
Catastrophe losses remain the single biggest swing factor in P&C results. In 2025 they cost the industry 7.6 points of combined ratio, down from 8.8 points in 2024. That 1.2 point swing is most of the year’s improvement, which is why the profit is better read as a quiet year than as a new baseline.
The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires drove $33.3 billion of catastrophe losses in the first quarter of 2025 alone, 14.5 points of combined ratio. Then the Atlantic hurricane season produced no U.S. landfall, the first time in 10 years. That combination, a severe first quarter followed by a quiet second half, is what produced the year’s result. First-quarter 2026 catastrophe losses fell to $10.0 billion, or 4.2 points.
Homeowners is the clearest illustration. Its 2025 net combined ratio came in at 88.1, the best in more than ten years, and yet the line absorbed the largest single wildfire loss in U.S. history in the same year. Catastrophe volatility, not day-to-day claims, is what moves property margins, in both directions.
P&C Insurance by Line of Business
Personal auto is the largest single line, and its scale shapes the whole industry’s numbers.
Line of business |
2025 snapshot |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Private passenger auto | $211B direct premiums (liability), 18.9% of P&C | Up 5.1% in 2025. Progressive is now the top writer, at 19.9% |
| Homeowners multi-peril | $188.87B, 17% of P&C, up 9.1% in 2025 | 2025 net combined ratio 88.1, the best in more than ten years |
| Commercial lines (combined) | 2025 underwriting profit $19.2B, more than double 2024 | Gap with personal lines narrowed in 2025 |
| Workers’ compensation | Consistently profitable, though margins are thinning | Net combined ratios in the low 90s through 2028; NCCI puts preliminary calendar year 2025 at 91, about 5 points higher than 2024 |
| General liability & commercial auto | Still above a 100 combined ratio in 2025 | The only major lines forecast above 100 through 2026. Commercial auto took a further $2.0B of adverse reserve development in 2025 |
Private passenger auto liability alone accounts for 18.9% of all P&C direct premiums, and adding auto physical damage takes auto to roughly 35% of the market, so shifts in auto pricing move the whole industry’s combined ratio. Progressive overtook State Farm as the largest private passenger auto liability writer in 2025. Workers’ compensation remains the standout profit line, while general liability and commercial auto are the lines insurers are watching most closely through 2026.
The Largest P&C Insurance Companies in the U.S.
State Farm is still the largest P&C insurer. It wrote $113.8 billion in net premiums in 2025, up 5.6%, and cut its net combined ratio to 98.2 from 105. The top 10 groups together controlled 51.4% of the market on NAIC 2024 direct premiums written, the most recent complete NAIC market share data.
Rank |
Company |
Direct premiums written (2024, NAIC) |
Market share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | State Farm | $109.0B | 10.30% |
| 2 | Progressive | $75.9B | 7.18% |
| 3 | Berkshire Hathaway (GEICO) | $63.3B | 5.98% |
| 4 | Allstate | $55.9B | 5.28% |
| 5 | Liberty Mutual | $44.1B | 4.17% |
| 6 | Travelers | $42.0B | 3.96% |
| 7 | USAA | $36.1B | 3.42% |
| 8 | Chubb | $33.3B | 3.15% |
| 9 | Farmers | $28.3B | 2.67% |
| 10 | Zurich | $18.6B | 1.76% |
Market concentration is rising. Progressive grew net premiums 11.7% in 2025, the fastest of the 25 largest writers, and overtook State Farm as the largest private passenger auto liability writer with a 19.9% share. Farmers grew 10.4% while posting an 82.5 net combined ratio, the best of the top 25. Liberty Mutual went the other way, shrinking premiums 3.3% while improving its combined ratio 10 points to 90.2. That spread puts steady pressure on regional and mid-sized insurers to compete on price, service, and technology.
2026 Outlook and Trends
The profitable stretch has continued into 2026, and growth has all but stopped.In the first quarter, U.S. P&C insurers posted a $16.3 billion net underwriting gain against a $1.0 billion loss a year earlier, and the combined ratio improved 7 points to 92.0. Net income more than doubled to $41.8 billion, and after-tax return on surplus reached 3.3% for the quarter. Net premiums written grew just 2.9%, to $250.9 billion.
Full-year 2025 delivered on that forecast: the lowest net combined ratio in over a decade, helped by a hurricane season that spared the U.S. and homeowners results that held up even after the Los Angeles fires. For 2026, Triple-I and Milliman forecast a 3.7% contraction in underlying P&C growth in the first half, against 1.6% growth in 2025, with recovery expected in 2027 and 2028. General liability and commercial auto remain the only major lines forecast to stay above 100.
Three trends to watch in 2026:
- Rate decreases. Commercial premiums fell 1.2% in the first quarter of 2026, ending a 33-quarter run of increases, then fell 2.0% in the second. Commercial property dropped 6.3%, its steepest fall since 2010. Margins compress from here if losses climb.
- Catastrophe volatility. Wildfire, convective storm, and hurricane exposure keep property results unpredictable regardless of the underlying trend. 2025 shows the upside of a quiet year; the first quarter of that year shows the downside.
- AI and core-system modernization. With prices falling and growth contracting, expense ratio is the lever insurers still control. That is pushing investment into agentic AI inside underwriting and claims, and into the data platforms that let insurers reprice against current loss costs rather than last year’s.
Common Mistakes When Reading P&C Statistics
Most P&C stat pages report one number without the context that makes it usable. A few pitfalls to avoid,including the one that caught out most 2026 stat pages: underwriting profit rose in 2025 while net income fell, so quoting either one alone gets the year wrong.
- Confusing direct and net premiums. Direct premiums written ( $1.1 trillion in 2025) count business before reinsurance; net premiums written ($975.8 billion) count it after. Both come from AM Best. They are not interchangeable, and the gap between them is not a rounding difference.
- Reading combined ratio in isolation. A 92.9 combined ratio is strong, but 2025 carried only a 7.6 point catastrophe load, its lightest in years. Verisk and APCIA are explicit that the result owes more to unusually low catastrophe losses than to any structural change in risk.
- Mixing market-size forecasts with actuals. Global “$X trillion by 2035” projections come from commercial research firms with differing methods, and they can run to twice the figure Swiss Re Institute publishes for the same market. Use them for scale, not precision , and never divide a U.S. actual by a global forecast.
- Blending personal and commercial trends. Personal auto and homeowners moved in opposite directions from general liability and commercial auto in 2025. Industry averages hide this.
- Treating one year as a trend. The 2024 rebound followed two loss years, and 2025 improved on it only with the weather’s help. Profitability here is cyclical and rate-dependent.
FAQ
What is the size of the U.S. P&C insurance industry?
The U.S. P&C industry wrote $975.8 billion in net premiums in 2025, up 5% on 2024, according to AM Best. On a direct basis, 2025 direct premiums written by line reached $1.11 trillion, also up 5%.
What was the P&C industry combined ratio in 2024?
The net combined ratio was 92.9 in 2025, a 3.7 point improvement on 96.6 in 2024 and the industry’s best underwriting result in more than a decade. A ratio below 100 signals an underwriting profit.
Who is the largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S.?
State Farm is the largest P&C insurer, with $113.8 billion in net premiums written in 2025, up 5.6%. Progressive is second, and overtook State Farm during 2025 as the largest writer of private passenger auto liability, the biggest single P&C line.
How much did catastrophes cost P&C insurers?
Catastrophe losses cost U.S. P&C insurers 7.6 points of combined ratio in 2025, down from 8.8 points in 2024. The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires alone drove $33.3 billion of losses in the first quarter, and the Atlantic hurricane season then produced no U.S. landfall for the first time in 10 years. First-quarter 2026 catastrophe losses fell to $10.0 billion.
What is the biggest line of P&C insurance?
Private passenger auto liability is the largest single line, at $211 billion in 2025 direct premiums, 18.9% of the P&C total and up 5.1%. Add auto physical damage at $177.4 billion and auto accounts for roughly 35% of all P&C premiums. Homeowners multi-peril is second, at $188.9 billion and 17%.
Is the P&C insurance industry profitable in 2026?
Yes. 2025 closed with a 92.9 combined ratio and about $63 billion of underwriting gain, the industry’s best result in more than a decade, and the first quarter of 2026 improved again to 92.0 with $41.8 billion of net income. Premium growth has slowed to 2.9%, though, and general liability and commercial auto remain unprofitable.
How concentrated is the P&C market?
The top 10 insurers controlled 51.4% of total P&C market share on NAIC 2024 direct premiums written, the most recent complete NAIC data. Concentration is still rising: Progressive grew net premiums 11.7% in 2025 and Farmers 10.4%, both well ahead of the 5% industry rate.
