While personal lines insurers reported double-digit rates of direct premiums written growth in 2023, some relative newcomers to the segment—including Tesla Insurance—saw triple-digit leaps although their volumes of business remained small, according to S&P GMI.

In the “S&P Global Market Intelligence 2024 U.S. P&C Insurance Market Report” published late last week, S&P GMI analysts delivered projections of premium growth and underwriting profits for the industry and for selected personal and commercial lines. In addition, one page of the report displays charts of the 15 “Fastest Growing P/C Writers” based on direct and net premium growth rates recorded for 2023.

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Topping both charts, Tesla’s direct premiums written growth was nearly 768 percent in 2023, “a rate of expansion that dwarfed the electric vehicle maker’s 38 percent year-over-year growth in new car deliveries,” the text of the S&P GMI report notes.

Overall, personal auto insurers recorded 14.5 percent growth in direct premiums in 2023, with S&P GMI projected a similar boost—14.0 percent growth—in 2024, followed by single-digit growth rates averages just under 4 percent for 2025-2028.

S&P GMI ranked two Florida homeowners insurance writers, Monarch National Insurance Co. and Vyrd Insurance, as the second- and third-fastest growing P/C insurers in 2023 based on direct premiums written. Both recorded premium growth in excess of 250 percent, with Monarch’s direct premium volume ending up at $284 million for the year, and Vyrd’s tallied at less than $88 million.

The report describes Monarch National as a former FedNat Holding Co. subsidiary, which writes homeowners insurance on an admitted basis in Florida.

Vyrd’s growth, S&P GMI said, reflected a combination of renewing policies previously assumed through the depopulation program of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. along with policies written on a voluntary basis through independent agents.

Industrywide, homeowners insurers grew direct premiums by 13.5 percent in 2023, with S&P GMI projecting lower growth rates—in a ranges of roughly 9-12 percent for the next five years.

A Florida-based and focused homeowners insurer, HCI Group, also made a different list of top-ranked insurers in the latest S&P GMI report—this one a list of personal lines insurers assessed as top performers based on operating metrics like combined ratios, rates of return, balance sheet expansion, among others. Narrowing the field to top-50 personal lines groups and individual filers, HCI group topped the leaderboard, with an operating score that edged out Progressive and Berkshire Hathaway. A benign loss year helped HCI’s performance, the report says, noting that more Florida-focused insurers would have qualified as top performers had S&P GMI broad the scope of companies to include smaller entities.

(Editor’s Note: Tim Zawacki, insurance sector strategist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, explains S&P GMI Performance Rankings in a separate article, S&P GMI Performance Rankings: E&S Insurer Kinsale Takes Top Spot. The leaderboards in that article are for writers of personal and commercial lines insurance, and are focused on the 100-largest writers gathered based on 2023 net premiums written.)

Among commercial lines carriers, Hamilton Select Insurance Co.—a commercial casualty insurer—ranked highest on the list of top growers, increasing its direct premiums by almost 200 percent to $78 million in 2023.

Ranked on the basis of growth in net premiums written, commercial writer MS Transverse Specialty Insurance Co. placed second to Tesla with nearly 300 percent growth to over $82 million in net written premiums. According to S&P GMI, MS Transverse Specialty operates a hybrid fronting model where it writes program business and retains a portion of the associated risk.