Texas E&S premiums surge 13.4% in May

Excess and surplus lines (E&S) premium in Texas has continued to set a new monthly record each month of 2020, according to May figures from the Surplus Lines Stamping Office of Texas (SLTX).

SLTX reported that for the first five months of this year each recorded total has been the highest premium amount ever reported for that particular month.

Some $772.89mn in premium was reported in Texas in May, a 13.4 percent increase over the $681.6mn recorded in May 2019.

This brought the year-to-date total to $3.18bn, a 14.3 percent increase over 2019’s total of $2.78bn in the same time period.

SLTX had recorded 434,499 total filings through the end of May in 2020, down 5.0 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

Texas had recorded the second biggest premium total among US states in 2019. Its $6.95bn in premium placed it behind California, with $10.3bn.

The E&S market is currently very attractive as a result of surging submissions and hardening rates.

As this publication has reported, private equity money is flooding into the E&S market to back carriers, while earlier this week it was revealed that wholesale giant RT Specialty is in advanced talks to buy number 4 broker All Risks.

The growth has been driven by a surge of submissions through the wholesale channel into the E&S sector, as retail brokers unable to fill placements in a retrenching standard lines market have increasingly relied on wholesale brokers to find surplus lines capacity.