FILING WATCH
National Recap · July 2026
National Recap — The Big Picture
July's headline number lied by omission. Averages clustered in the mid-single digits, but nearly every large filing carried an indicated need two to four times what the carrier actually took — The Hartford at 8% against 20%, CNA at 7% against 31%, United Financial at under 1% against 18%. That gap doesn't evaporate; it becomes next year's filing. Agents should read a modest approved increase on a stressed line as a down payment, not a settlement.
The real repricing happened in the machinery, not the rate. Twenty-four filings introduced or expanded scoring models — State Farm's Customer Rating Index (running in Nebraska, Missouri and Connecticut), Progressive's Scoring Model v5.0 on 219,000 Texas policyholders, and a driver-history wave built on CarFax, TransUnion and LexisNexis data (Federated, Canal, Chubb, Acuity). On these books the state 'average' is meaningless — an account's index score, not the filed percentage, decides its renewal.
One program moved through the country in a single month. Great American assumed the Vantapro sports-and-wellness general-liability book in at least nine states — Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont — repricing it 52.3% where it reprices and cutting the medical-expense limit from $25,000 to $10,000 everywhere. Gyms, studios, leagues and wellness centers are paying more for materially less, and it's the same filing in every state.
And carriers kept leaving. Nineteen filings this month were exits, withdrawals or book transfers — from AmGUARD dropping Oregon towing to Accredited non-renewing 255 Michigan BOPs, Erie exiting a DC contractors program, T.H.E. abandoning amusement auto in South Carolina, and Argonaut handing 1,741 Vermont policies to an affiliate. Every exit is an account shopping right now, often in a class that's already hard to place.
Indicated-vs-filed is the number to watch
The most useful figure in a 2026 filing isn't the approved rate — it's the indication behind it. Book after book shows carriers taking a third to a half of stated need. Where the gap is widest (CNA MD BOP 7.4% vs 31.2%; Great American wellness 52.3% vs 131%), a second filing is close to certain.
Scoring models are now the default, not the exception
Third-party data — driving records, vehicle history, credit, even litigation-funding disclosure — is pricing small commercial across every region. The same carrier can post a decrease and a 24% liability hike in the same model; the state average tells you nothing about your client's renewal.
Liability is bifurcating by segment
General liability isn't rising uniformly — it's spiking where the losses are: sexual-misconduct and abuse coverage (+24% to +62%), sports and wellness (+52%), nonprofits (+20%), and small-firm cyber (+48%). Broad GL is calmer; the hit segments are getting repriced hard and having coverage trimmed at the same time.
The excess tower is firming ahead of primary
Commercial umbrella and excess ran hotter than the primary lines beneath them — Farmers +33% in California, Auto-Owners and Cincinnati in the 7–8% range across the Midwest — a classic signal that reinsurers are pushing severity assumptions down the chain.
Workers comp is the quiet line — for now
Bureau loss costs stayed soft and most WC filings were flat or favorable. The exceptions are structural: carriers folding acquired books onto their paper (AF Group absorbing Star Insurance) and class exits (Trean leaving Oklahoma firefighter comp). Comp premium can still rise on an LCM or tier move while the market softens around it.
Coverage & Structural Watch
Medical limits and coverage floors are quietly dropping
The Great American wellness program halves the medical-expense limit nationwide; Progressive's United Financial added PFAS and data-privacy exclusions on a sub-1% filing; Cincinnati and Navigators added assault/battery and sexual-abuse exclusions to auto. The rate barely moved — the coverage did.
Scoring inputs are getting exotic
Beyond credit and telematics, carriers are now rating on vehicle history (TransUnion/CARFAX odometer and ownership data), litigation-funding disclosure, and 'size of risk' curves that swing a single account ±190% around a 0.3% filed average. Underwriting is increasingly happening in the algorithm, not the manual.
Book transfers are the new exit
Rather than simply non-renewing, carriers are migrating whole books to affiliates at a 0% headline (Liberty Mutual moving the State Auto book in Colorado; Argonaut to ANPAC in Vermont) with the real dislocation capped and phased in over years. The 0% is cosmetic; the underlying re-rate is 30%+.