The Total Direct Written Premium For The Homeowners Insurance Marketplace in Massachusetts was $2,437,080,010
Brand-new idea in insurance! The new Homeowners Policy of the North America Companies protects you against loss caused by fire, theft, lightning, wind, explosion, hail, riot, vehicle damage, vandalism and smoke.”
– Display Ad 64 — No Title. (1954, October 31). Los Angeles Times
Here, in a single policy, homeowners are provided with essential insurance at a price considerably less than the four separate policies it replaces.
Display Ad 61 — No Title. (1953, September 14). Wall Street Journal
In 1950, the first Multi-Line Homeowners Policy was introduced…
This week’s Massachusetts Market Share Report for 2020 focuses on an update of the Homeowner’s Multi-Peril marketplace in Massachusetts. While the birth of homeowner’s insurance as we know began with the first Fire Insurance policies issued after the Great Fire of London, homeowner’s insurance as we know it today actually dates back to 1950. That year, the Insurance Company of North America introduced a truly innovative product, the multiline or package homeowner’s policy. The new product offering cost about 20% less than the combined premiums on separate policies homeowners had to buy to obtain similar coverage at that time.
In an article on the subject published by the Library of Congress, the estimated cost for this new homeowners package policy ranged from between $88 to $100 versus the $125 the same coverage in separate policies would have cost in 1950. According to the article, the new multiline policy was an instant success with consumers, as well as warmly welcomed by insurance agents who found the simple policy much easier to explain and sell to their insureds.
The impact of the new homeowner’s policy revolutionized not only the insurance industry, but had far-reaching effects through the U.S. economy in spurring home-building and by making the home-buying process more secure and affordable.
In today’s insurance marketplace, Homeowner’s Multi-Peril is one of the larger lines of insurance, and continues to grow. The private passenger auto insurance marketplace, however, continues to eclipse it as the larger of the two traditional lines of insurance of the independent insurance agencies in Massachusetts.
There were 155 companies writing Homeowner’s Multi-Peril insurance in 2018
A couple of quick facts on the breakdown of the premium and how much market share the top 20 homeowners’ carriers write.
- The top 20 insurers have well over half of the Homeowner’s Multi-Peril market share with a combined 63.2% share of the market. In last year’s report which focused on 2017 numbers, the top 20 insurers had a 64.2% share of the market.
- The combined Direct Written Premium for this group of top 20 carriers was $1,540,990,683 in 2018.
- The remaining 135 carriers writing Homeowners’ Multi-Peril Insurance represented the remaining 36.8% share of the market with $896,089,327 in Direct Written Premium.
- The total amount of Direct Written Premiums for this marketplace in 2018 was $2,437,080,010.
This is the one of the few lines of business dominated by Massachusetts-based insurers
In terms of the amount of Massachusetts-based insurers who write this line of insurance, this is one of the marketplaces dominated by homegrown insurers. As noted in past years, the top five writers of this line of insurance are all based in Massachusetts, with nine of the top 20 companies claiming Massachusetts as their home base. Those companies are:
- Citation Insurance Co.
- Arbella Mutual Insurance Co.
- Commerce Insurance Co.
- Merrimack Mutual Fire Insurance Co.
- Safety Ind. Insurance Co.
- Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.
- Safety Insurance Co.
- Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Co.
- Bay State Ins Co.
The complete list of the top 20 insurers in this marketplace…
As always, all of our information comes courtesy of the Division of Insurance and is based on data from 2018, the last year for which complete information is available.
| Company Name | State | Premium Written/MA | Market Share/MA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Citation Ins Co | MA | $205,569,771 | 8.44% |
| 2. Arbella Mut Ins Co | MA | $131,655,130 | 5.40% |
| 3. Commerce Ins Co | MA | $121,654,369 | 4.99% |
| 4. Merrimack Mut Fire Ins Co | MA | $105,085,396 | 4.34% |
| 5. Safety Ind Ins Co | MA | $104,951,343 | 4.31% |
| 6. Amica Mut Ins Co | RI | $99,992,448 | 4.10% |
| 7. Vermont Mut Ins Co | VT | $90,157,015 | 3.70% |
| 8. Liberty Mut Fire Ins Co | WI | $79,786,797 | 3.27% |
| 9. LM Gen Ins Co | IL | $62,473,538 | 2.56% |
| 10. Narragansett Bay Ins Co | RI | $56,173,724 | 2.30% |
| 11. Metropolitan Prop & Cas Ins Co | RI | $53,552,499 | 2.20% |
| 12. Liberty Mut Ins Co | MA | $53,538,480 | 2.20% |
| 13. Safety Ins Co | MA | $53,284,274 | 2.19% |
| 14. United Prop & Cas Ins Co | FL | $49,895,412 | 2.05% |
| 15. Quincy Mut Fire Ins Co | MA | $49,868,061 | 2.05% |
| 16. Pacific Ind Co | WI | $46,303,311 | 1.90% |
| 17. Citizens Ins Co Of Amer | MI | $45,737,019 | 1.88% |
| 18. United Serv Automobile Assn | TX | $43,833,956 | 1.80% |
| 19. Bay State Ins Co | MA | $43,740,708 | 1.79% |
| 20. Preferred Mut Ins Co | NY | $42,935,225 | 1.76% |
| TOTAL | $2,437,080,010 | 100% |
Other useful information about the Homeowner’s marketplace in Massachusetts
As many of our readers know, Agency Checklists publishes a four-part report on the Commissioner of Insurance’s Annual Home Insurance Report. The report, required by law to be published each year, takes a look at the state of the Home Insurance marketplace in Massachusetts each year. For those interested, the links to each article in our four-part series are provided below:
- 1st Look: An Overview Of The Annual Report on Home Insurance in Massachusetts
- 2nd Look: The Massachusetts FAIR Plan Wrote 1.8% More Policies in 2018
- 3rd Look: 2018 Home Insurance Policies By Massachusetts County
- 4th Look: Homeowner Insurance Claims, Loss Ratios, Cancellations & Non-Renewals In Massachusetts
