Mild Hurricane Season Benefited Home Insurance Companies

01/30/2010

The U.S. property/casualty insurance industry is said to have weathered the recession reasonably well, which is good for property owners who may wonder about the stability of their home insurance company.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, a relatively calm 2009 hurricane season was especially helpful for the industry, especially in light of the payouts it had to make in the aftermath of devastating storms over the last decade that resulted in billions of dollars of property damage.

For the entire property/casualty insurance industry, net income after taxes was said to be $16.2 billion during the first nine months of 2009, which compares to the $4.4 billion in income recorded for that period in 2008.

However, one red flag for the industry appears to be the decline in the net number of premiums that have been issued over the past couple of years, in part due to the recession and the decline in the commercial real estate sector.

For people shopping around for the right home insurance coverage, industry experts often advise them to be sure the company is financially stable to ensure that it will be able to make any necessary payouts and to provide sufficient customer service.

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