Directors and officers liability insurance premium rates were previously lagging the market recovery in the broader commercial lines segment, but pricing trends are now catching up, Fitch Ratings reported in an analysis of D&O premium and loss trends last week.

Direct written premiums for the D&O rose nearly 6 percent for the top 5 writers, Fitch said. Compiling direct premium data from supplements required by insurance regulators using data from SNL Financial, the Fitch report revealed that the top 5 combined to write almost 50 percent of the D&O 2012 direct written premiums, and the top 10 wrote 69 percent of the total.