Property-Casualty Insurers to See Stable Results in 2026 Results Despite Softening

While US property-casualty insurance markets are expected to continue softening in 2026, insurers' results and underwriting profits should remain stable for the year, according to Fitch Ratings. 

US property-casualty insurers will face increased competition, abundant capital, and downward pricing pressure in 2026, Fitch said. Meanwhile, insurers' revenue growth will slow due to the easing rate environment and macroeconomic uncertainty, according to the rating agency. 

But improved personal lines results and strong performance by commercial lines will support insurers' stable results and underwriting profits, Fitch said.

Fitch noted that property-casualty insurers' statutory performance benefited in 2025 from a benign hurricane season and higher reserve releases. The largest 2025 insured loss event was the Los Angeles, California, wildfires, Fitch said, which caused $40 billion in insured losses and $53 billion in economic losses, making it the largest wildfire loss in US history.   

"Commercial lines carriers were largely spared from the California wildfire losses faced by US primary insurers," Fitch said. "Regional and mutual insurers retained most of these losses, as individual storms were not severe enough to trigger most excess-of-loss reinsurance coverages, with reinsurers deemphasizing this high-frequency risk." 

The rating agency projected that the US commercial lines sector will post an aggregate 94 percent combined ratio in 2025, with the sector's underwriting profit narrowing slightly this year to produce a 96 percent to 97 percent combined ratio. That assumes a more normalized, higher level of catastrophe losses, Fitch said. 

Fitch said it has a "neutral" fundamental sector outlook for the US property-casualty insurance sector in 2026, as well as for both commercial and personal lines.