Marsh Says It Only Sees Targeted Rate Correction

Marsh & McLennan executives said this month that they are only seeing a “targeted correction” – not a broad-based hard market – in the P/C commercial insurance market.

CEO Brian Duperreault said during the May 1 earnings call, “Is it a hard market? I think not in the definitions we apply. There is some benefit in some areas for carriers in terms of rate, but it is not across the board.” And there are still business lines where rates are continuing to go down, and even whole geographies where rates are down except for cat. “So, I am not sure what you would call it. So, for us, it’s just a market,” he said. Chief Operating Officer Daniel Glaser added that the market follows levels of losses, and the levels of losses have been specific to geography and to lines of business. “So, it is a pretty targeted correction of rates in certain areas – we don’t see a broad-based blood-in-the-eye hard market where underwriters are walking away from clients en masse,” he said.