Start Farm charted $3.37 billion in direct written premium in Q1 of 2011, easily besting second place finisher
As a whole, the U.S. homeowners market exhibited modest growth on a year-over-year basis in Q1 of 2011, notes Terry Leone, an analyst with SNL. However, Leone cautions that the good quarter may be aberrational given the context of underwriting losses realized in 2010 coupled with the large expected losses that many will incur from the severe tornado and thunderstorm activity in the second quarter of 2011.
Indeed, Leone’s analysis also ranks insurers according to exposure to severe tornadoes during April and May of 2011 in Oklahoma, Missouri, Alabama and Mississippi. “Among the top 30 homeowners writers in the first quarter of 2011, American Family Mutual Insurance Co.held the highest exposure to these states at 16.4% of its total 2010 homeowners premium,” Leone writes. “It is followed by American Modern Insurance Group Inc. at 15.0% and Auto Club Exchange Group at 11.3%. Since tornadoes are generally very local events, exposure to one of these states does not necessarily mean the company will have extensive losses from these events.”
