Annual Statutory Insurance Data Released

Charlottesville, Va. — SNL Financial, a sector-focused provider of business intelligence to financial institutions, released to its clients 2007 annual statutory insurance data for early-filing companies. Included with the release is detailed financial data on each filer, data by state and line of business, Schedule P loss triangle data and summary investment data, with hundreds of ratios, snapshots and analytics to facilitate analysis of this robust dataset. SNL also intends to make consolidated insurance group data available in the coming weeks.

Out of an expected 2,749 P&C filers, SNL released data on 2,433, or 89%, along with 88% of the 819 expected life & annuity filers and 64% of the expected 762 health filers. SNL's statutory insurance release includes 2007 annual data on 98 of the 100 largest P&C filers and 87 of the 100 largest life companies based on upon year-end 2006 net premiums written.

Thanks to a relatively benign year for catastrophes and favorable loss experience, P&C companies appeared to have enjoyed a net underwriting profit for the third time over the past four years. The year 2007 marks only the third occurrence of underwriting profits since 1978. The average combined ratio for the early reporters was 95%, compared with 92.4% in 2006. Average return on equity (pre-tax operating income divided by average capital and surplus) for the group declined to 13.2% from 16.4% a year ago in part from a 7% increase in policyholders' surplus year-over-year.

Results were slightly more favorable for the life industry relative to 2006. The early life reporters generated an average return on equity of 15.8% in 2007, compared with 15.6% in 2006. Early health filers reported weaker but still impressive results with an average return on average equity of 21.5%, down from 25.5% in 2006.

In April 2007, Insurance Networking News reported that SNL had reached an agreement with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Kansas City, Mo., to acquire and publish statutory insurance data through SNL's database products.

"This initial release provides comprehensive data on early reporting insurance operating companies,” said Jonathan Wright, SNL's associate director, Statutory Insurance. “We anticipate beginning to publish statutory data at the group level over the next several weeks."

SNL, Charlottesville, S.C., provides clients with a comprehensive insurance offering, marrying the statutory data with public insurance company data, insurance mergers & acquisitions data, proprietary news, documents and more.

Source: SNL Financial LC