4th Look of 2018: The Massachusetts PP Auto Insurance Marketplace Review

Our bi-monthly look at how the Massachusetts private passenger auto insurance marketplace is shaping up this year

This is Agency Checklists’ fourth look of the year at the at the latest movements and trends in the market share of private passenger automobile (“PPA”) insurance companies in Massachusetts.

All tables and graphs below reflect the current state of the market as of August 2018, the latest date for which complete data on the private passenger auto insurance marketplace is available.

As always, the data presented here is provided courtesy of the Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers, the statistical agent for motor vehicle insurance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

A quick overview of the private passenger marketplace in Mass.

DOI PPA Chart | Agency Checklists — *Chart source DOI*

The Division of Insurance noted in its latest available annual report, which includes complete data for 2016, that a total of 49 companies write private passenger automobile insurance in Massachusetts.

The total Direct Written Premium for this line of insurance was $4,925,469,543 dollars in 2016, with the top 20 writing the vast majority of that with $4,607,077.606 dollars in Total Direct Written Premium or a 93.5% market share.

The remaining 29 companies wrote only $318,391,937 dollars in Direct Written Premium, representing a 6.5% market share.

MAPFRE (Commerce) still top private passenger auto insurer in Massachusetts; GEICO still second, and Safety third…

As we mentioned in our First Look Article in May of this year, beginning in 2017, GEICO started out as the fifth largest private passenger insurer in Massachusetts (reflecting the market as of December 2016), just two tenths of a percentage point behind Arbella. In the past lustrum, GEICO has grown its presence here to become the second largest writer with a total 282,460 exposures representing a 11.40% market share at the mid-point of 2018.

Also noteworthy, is that Safety has claimed the third largest market share, above Liberty Mutual at this mid-point of 2018. The following is a list of all the companies writing private passenger insurance here along with the number of exposures and corresponding market share.

COMPANY NAME	EXPOSURES	MARKET SHARE
1. COMMERCE/MAPFRE	820,108	24.93%
2. GEICO	379,599	11.54%
3. SAFETY	305,338	9.28%
4. LIBERTY MUTUAL	301,843	9.18%
5. ARBELLA	266,642	8.11%
6. PLYMOUTH ROCK	196,877	5.99%
7. PROGRESSIVE	139,309	4.24%
8. METROPOLITAN	116,980	3.56%
9. TRAVELERS OF MA	112,878	3.43%
10. AMICA MUTUAL	110,692	3.37%
11. HANOVER	104,353	3.17%
12. USAA	100,431	3.05%
13. QUINCY MUTUAL	57,196	1.74%
14. ALLSTATE	46,581	1.42%
15. NORFOLK AND DEDHAM MUTUAL	38,788	1.18%
16. VERMONT MUTUAL	38,033	1.16%
17. NATIONAL GRANGE	36,592	1.11%
18. PREFERRED MUTUAL	19,668	0.60%
19. OCCIDENTAL INS	16,387	0.50%
20. STATE FARM	14,583	0.44%
22. INTEGON	11,335	0.34%
23. GREEN MOUNTAIN	9,096	0.28%
24. IDS	8,240	0.25%
25. ELECTRIC	7,999	0.24%
26. BANKERS STANDARD	7,980	0.24%
27. ESURANCE	6,580	0.20%
29. PURE	5,205	0.16%
30. AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL	2,467	0.08%
31. HARLEYSVILLE WORCESTER	1,754	0.05%
31. ENCOMPASS	4	0.00%

Our look at the PPA market shifts and trends over the past five and ten years…

In order to give some perspective of the shifts in the marketplace over the past decade, in addition to featuring a graph of the Top Ten PPA insurers as of August 2018, similar graphs from five years ago in August 2013, as well as from ten years ago in August 2008 are included below.

The goal is to present a more complete perspective on how the Massachusetts automobile insurance market has shifted during the past five and ten years, including which includes the first year of “Managed Competition.”

August 2018

Now compare these graphs to the same date five years ago or in August 2013:

August 2013

Finally, the top 10 private passenger auto insurance companies in Massachusetts a decade ago, which also is the first official year of “Managed Competition”.