In the fourth quarter of 2022 increase in auto insurance purchases this means recovery, not growth, and according to TransUnion’s new insurance trends report, the increase in home insurance purchases is likely to continue into 2023.
Keeping or lowering the line on rents and home prices may not be easy this year, according to Michelle Jackson, senior director of personal property and casualty insurance at insurance company TransUnion. Jackson is the author of the report.”Trends and outlook for personal insurance in the first quarter of 2023.”
“If rental prices start to drop a little, then people will be able to start moving again. For a while they were locked in by high prices where they didn’t move,” she said. “As costs continue to rise and are not expected to come down in 2023 – the cost of vehicles, the cost of a home – the question is whether price buying will continue long enough to outweigh the fact that people don’t necessarily buy the way they used to. “.
Rising inflation in late 2022 has made insurance premiums a reason to buy both auto and home insurance, Jackson said. At the same time, “inflation kept rising and then carriers started raising rates,” she said. “It encourages buying higher than things like reach or digital quotes.”
Renters insurance rates began to decline year-over-year in November 2021, finally falling by 20% in July 2022 but then bouncing back until they rose by 1% in January. While lower-risk policyholders are less likely to buy due to price changes, Jackson said higher-risk policyholders are very price-oriented.
“They will buy and change all the time, always looking for the lowest price,” she said. “We see that the number of purchases is growing from year to year. Prices are rising so much only because of the increase in the cost of losses and carrier rates. Prices rise by 5, 10, 15 or 20%. more and more consumers are simply more price sensitive about what they pay.”
Homeownership doesn’t look much better, according to TransUnion. Its consumer credit forecast for 2023 projects a 24 percent increase in home equity issuance—meaning homeowners who can’t afford new homes are instead financing home renovations by borrowing against the value of their home.
In addition, according to the TransUnion Trends Report, carriers can expect auto claims to rise, making the auto insurance industry more vulnerable.
In the current insurance market conditions, the next step for insurers appears to be cyber incident insurance, especially as 95% of cyber incidents can be resolved without claims by incident response teams, according to TransUnion’s insurance trends report.
“In times of profitability constraints, insurers are looking for ways to provide value-added services. Roadside assistance is an outdated version of this. Today it is cyber insurance,” Jackson said. “In terms of personal lines, we see many more issues resolved as a result of incident response than in commercial lines.”
