California Surplus Line Premiums Top $6 Billion

The Surplus Line Association of California (SLA) has released its analysis of annual filed premium, which indicates that $6.02 billion in California surplus line insurance premiums were processed in calendar year 2006. The figure represents 509,302 policies written, said Ted Pierce, executive director of the association in a statement.

“These figures are higher than predicted for the surplus line market and reverses the trend from the previous year. At the end of 2005, the SLA experienced a 1 percent decrease in premium volume compared to 2004,” he said.

According to the data, the top five surplus line brokers in 2006 in terms of premium volume were Western Risk Specialists, Swett & Crawford, Marsh USA, AmWINS Insurance Brokers and AON Risk Services. The top five lines of coverage written in the surplus line market were general liability, errors and omissions, commercial DIC/stand alone earthquake, commercial property, and excess liability.

The top five surplus line insurers were Lexington Insurance Co., American International Specialty Lines Insurance Co., Scottsdale Insurance Co., Landmark American Insurance Co., Arch Specialty Insurance Co. The combined Lloyd’s syndicates wrote 14 percent of California premiums.

The SLA is an organization of 1,400 surplus line brokers licensed by the State of California to negotiate and place insurance with nonadmitted insurers. With few exceptions, all California surplus line insurance policies must be filed with the Surplus Line Association of California for analysis, regulatory compliance, record keeping, and statistical reporting.

Source: SLA