WTW Survey Shows 65% of Specialty Rate Gains since 2023 Eroded
Specialty insurance rates fell faster in the first half of 2026 than in the whole of 2025, and by the 1 July renewals around 65% of the rate gains built up to the 2023 market peak had been eroded, according to WTW's latest Specialty Insurance Marketplace Survey (SIMS).
Across the London, Bermuda and US excess and surplus (E&S) markets, insurance and reinsurance rates both fell 4% gross of claims trend and 6% net of trend in the six months to June, with the steepest cuts, in property, reaching 17% net of claims and exposure trend. For insurers, the number that matters most sits underneath the headline: in casualty, rate rises are no longer keeping pace with claims inflation.
The survey marks a clear acceleration from the start of the year. Insurance softened at roughly twice the 2025 pace in the first half of 2026, and reinsurance softened three to four times faster. At the 1 January renewals, aggregate insurance rates were down 5% gross of trend; by 1 July they were down 6% gross and 9% net, with most individual classes showing no sign of slowing.
How fast are specialty insurance rates falling in 2026?
Faster than the hard market took to build. Between 2017 and the 2023 peak, rates net of claims and exposure trend rose by about 50% cumulatively. By July 2026, around 65% of those gains had been given back, on WTW's SIMS insurance rate index. That is a sharp step up from the firm's May 2026 reading, which put the cumulative increase near 45% with roughly half eroded, a revision WTW attributes to participants' updated view of claims trend across the full cycle.
Every one of the 15 material insurance and reinsurance classes tracked in the first half of 2026 recorded a net-of-claims-trend rate decrease. The survey draws on about $300 billion of gross written premium over a 10-year cycle, including $50 billion in 2025 and $29 billion in the first half of 2026, and it relies on insurer-owned data supplied by participating clients of WTW's Insurance Consulting and Technology business rather than broker-derived figures.
Richard Clarkson, Global Market Leader for Global Specialty at WTW, said the 1 July results "point to accelerating softening, with rates down 6% gross and 9% net," and that movements across most individual classes "show no slowdown."
Which specialty classes are softening most?
Property is leading the fall, down 17% net of trend at the 1 July renewals as the decline accelerated from 2025. Energy and Financial and Professional Liability (FINEX) recorded high-single-digit reductions net of trend, though early signs of stabilisation appeared in US FINEX. Marine fell by mid-single digits, while aviation and accident and health posted low-single-digit cuts. The spread confirms that the softening is broad but uneven, with individual lines moving on their own cycles rather than in step.
Why is casualty turning negative despite rate rises?
Because claims inflation has overtaken the rate increases. Casualty rates rose 6% at the 1 July renewals, but WTW estimates claims trend in the class at 8% in excess of exposure trend, leaving an effective rate reduction of about 2%. That crossover was not visible in the 1 January data, and it is the survey's most consequential finding: casualty is a long-tail class where rate adequacy was already under scrutiny, and a real-terms cut raises the prospect of margin pressure that will not surface in reported pricing for some time.
The gap between gross and net figures across the market tells a version of the same story. Headline price reductions understate the squeeze on technical margins once claims-cost inflation is accounted for, which is why net-of-trend rates are falling faster than gross.
What makes WTW's SIMS data different?
It captures both the January and July renewal points from carriers' own books, where most market surveys lean on broker submissions and annual snapshots. That dual-renewal, insurer-sourced structure is what lets the survey show softening accelerating within a single year rather than only between years. WTW's clients use the data to validate business plans, benchmark pricing, test rate adequacy on new and renewal business, and support reserving. The next SIMS update will cover the second half of 2026 and the 1 January 2027 renewals.
Why This Matters to FinanceX Readers
Specialty rate declines are old news to anyone watching the market. The sharper signal in this survey is the speed at which the margin cushion is thinning. With about two-thirds of the 2017 to 2023 rate build now unwound and reinsurance softening three to four times faster than last year, the protection that carried specialty carriers through recent results years is running off at pace. Casualty crossing into real-terms negative territory is the line to watch, because reserve adequacy in long-tail classes is where soft-market optimism tends to be tested first.
For anyone holding specialty insurer or insurtech exposure, pricing data of this granularity is a sharper read on where profitability is heading than the headline rate change alone.
