Hard-to-Place Risk and Where It Goes
2026-Q3
The tracker opens with the market mid-turn: commercial property softening and remarketable, commercial auto and the excess tower above it still hard, Florida personal property reopening as Citizens shrinks to a record low, and California wildfire property still restricted as the FAIR Plan passes 684,000 policies. Compiled from named public documents only.
Methodology
This quarter is compiled exclusively from named public documents: rate-index releases (CIAB, Ivans), the surplus lines stamping offices' annual report, reinsurance renewal data (Guy Carpenter via Artemis), residual-market filings and official statistics (Florida Citizens, California FAIR Plan), each verified live on the compilation date and logged in the publication's verification records. It contains no interview sourcing. Availability classifications synthesize those documents; risk categories without public documentation are omitted rather than estimated. Recommended-market columns stay empty until the editor's wholesale-desk and carrier relationships formalize that intelligence. Appetite shifts faster than any quarterly document; verify against the market before submitting.
Personal Lines Property
| Risk category | Availability | Recommended markets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida wind-exposed homeowners The admitted market is re-forming around a shrinking residual market. Florida Citizens expected to end 2025 at roughly 385,000 policies, its lowest count ever, recommended an average personal-lines rate cut of 2.6% starting June 2026 (about half of personal-lines customers seeing roughly 11.5% decreases), and reports about 97% of recent take-out offers landing within the premium threshold that ends Citizens eligibility. Direction: reopening. | Standard market | ||
| California wildfire-exposed homeowners The residual market is still absorbing risk. The California FAIR Plan reports 684,388 policies in force as of March 2026, up 6% since September 2025 and 152% since September 2022, with total exposure of $750 billion. Admitted-market appetite in high fire-severity zones remains the constraint. Direction: restricted, not yet turning. | Restricted |
Commercial Property
| Risk category | Availability | Recommended markets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAT-exposed commercial property The turn is real in this cell. CIAB's Q1 2026 index recorded commercial property premiums down 5.5%, the largest decrease of any line, after Guy Carpenter's global property catastrophe reinsurance index fell 12% at the January 1, 2026 renewals. AM Best cited early rate softening in revising its E&S outlook to stable in November 2025. Remarketing produces competing quotes again. | Standard market | ||
| Property placed on E&S paper, 2019-2025 Currently on non-admitted paper by definition; the live question is return flow. With admitted property appetite reopening (see CAT-exposed cell) and stamping-office premium growth decelerating from +13.2% at mid-2025 to +7.8% for the full year, hard-market E&S placements are candidates for admitted re-entry review at renewal, weighing form differences and guaranty-fund status against premium. | Wholesale / E&S |
Commercial Auto & Excess Casualty
| Risk category | Availability | Recommended markets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trucking and fleet commercial auto The un-turned line. CIAB's Q1 2026 index has commercial auto up 5.8%, its 59th consecutive quarterly increase, and the 2025 stamping-office report names commercial auto among the E&S market's growth areas: adverse and fleet risk keeps flowing to wholesale paper while the rest of the market softens. | Wholesale / E&S | ||
| Lead umbrella and excess over auto The hardest placement in the panel data. The Ivans Index puts umbrella renewal rate change at 9.36% in Q1 2026, the highest of any tracked line and down only fractionally from 9.49%, reflecting the casualty tower's exposure to the distressed auto line beneath it. | Wholesale / E&S |
Specialty Lines
| Risk category | Availability | Recommended markets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyber liability Buyer's market conditions. CIAB's Q1 2026 index recorded cyber premiums down 3.5% as capacity keeps re-entering a line that spiked earlier in the decade; competition on coverage terms, not just price, is back in standard channels. | Standard market | ||
| Cannabis operations A specialty-channel line: the 2025 stamping-office report names cannabis-related risks among the E&S market's growth areas, and placement runs through the MGA and program channel on non-admitted paper, with the coverage-form and guaranty-fund implications that carries. | Specialty MGA |
Sources
- CIAB Commercial P&C Market Index, Q1 2026, via Agency Checklists (June 8, 2026)
- Ivans Index Q1 2026 results, GlobeNewswire (April 23, 2026)
- US Surplus Lines Stamping Offices 2025 annual report, via Insurance Business America
- Guy Carpenter property catastrophe rate-on-line index at Jan. 1, 2026 renewals, via Artemis
- California FAIR Plan official key statistics, March 2026 (cfpnet.com)
- Insurance Journal on Florida Citizens 2026 rate filing and record-low policy count (Dec. 11, 2025)