Chubb Writing More Personal E&S but CEO Greenberg Doesn’t Like the Trend

Chubb is writing more North American personal excess and surplus lines business, but the insurer’s chief executive is not exactly celebrating.

While he reminded analysts during a fourth-quarter earnings conference call that the large majority of Chubb’s personal insurance portfolio is on admitted paper, CEO Evan G. Greenberg said Chubb’s E&S business is growing “at a rapid clip” and will likely continue to do so.

“I don’t like the trend,” Greenberg said. “More will go on non-admitted. Climate change continues, and states take the wrong actions to try to cover up price and deflect price signals.”

States and regulators “don’t allow us to tailor coverage for those who [are] exposed in a more outsized way to catastrophes,” Greenberg continued. “Remember, affluent people want to live in beautiful places that are right on the edge of civilization, and it’s more [catastrophe]-exposed. Where we can’t tailor coverage in line with exposure, we’ll use [E&S] and price it adequately.

“I wish we could serve this customer base on an admitted basis to give them what they need and what they want to buy.”

Asked later to explain more, Greenberg said the admitted market is “customer friendly” and “easier to place.”

“You have to go through a more administrative process to place [a risk] in E&S,” he said. “You can’t just jump to E&S; you have to be able to leap through admitted-market hurdles to get to E&S.”

In announcing what Chubb called record-breaking fourth quarter results, it did not offer any specifics related to personal lines risk heading to E&S. Premiums in Chubb’s high-net-worth personal lines business grew 12% and new business was up 34%. North America personal insurance grew net premiums 12.1% in the fourth quarter.

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