National insurers have produced higher returns on equity and lower combined ratios in recent years, according to our analysis of financial results (published in a companion article here). Drilling down to analyze median returns and combined ratios by region, however, reveals differences by territory with Midwestern regional insurers performing best over the past five years.

It’s also interesting to note that Southern-focused regional companies have not competed their profits away; fully 40 percent of the 225 regionals in the database used for this analysis—or 90 insurers—focus on the South. That’s roughly twice the number of companies focused on any other region in the country.