Texas Surplus Lines Premium Exceeded $4 Billion in 2012

Premium on policies reported to the Surplus Lines Stamping Office of Texas in 2012 totaled more than $4 billion, a record volume SLSOT reported. This represented an increase of $767 million over 2011, a rise of nearly 24 percent.

Premium insuring non-Texas exposures on multi-state policies where Texas was the “home state” was $311 million. Under the federal Nonadmitted & Reinsurance Reform Act, the “home state” has the option of taxing premium on exposures located in other states on a multi-state surplus lines transaction. Like most other large-market states (including California, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania), Texas has elected to follow that approach.

While total premium volume remained low compared with other property lines, percentage-wise, sales of earthquake insurance increased the most in 2012, more than 500 percent, as compared to other surplus lines of insurance.

The stamping office also reported that total filings submitted by surplus lines agents for the year were 824,798, a decrease of 1.2 percent from the prior year. Since large increases in both premium and filings typically accompany a true “hard” insurance cycle, the Texas surplus lines market did not appear to meet that description in 2012.

More detailed Texas premium information on coverages and individual insurer totals is available on the Stamping Office website (www.slsot.org) under “TX Market Data.”

Source: SLSOT