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The top ten P&C insurer groups accounted for 25.3 percent of total P&C gross direct premiums written worldwide in 2020 (down marginally from 25.5 percent in 2019), according to global rankings put together by London-based consultants Insuramore.

The top five were State Farm, PICC, Allianz, AXA and Berkshire Hathaway Insurance, followed by Ping An, Liberty Mutual, Progressive, Allstate and Tokio Marine.

In total, their combined gross direct premiums written came to about $480.8bn, within a worldwide market for P&C lines worth in the region of $1.9trn in 2020.

Only one insurer group – PICC – was ranked among the top five globally for both personal and commercial lines activities in 2020. Ranked second by gross direct premiums written for commercial lines, it was joined in the top five of that segment by AXA (the sector leader) plus AIG, Allianz and Chubb.

Overall, the top five insurer groups for commercial P&C insurance accounted for about 15.3% of worldwide business in 2020, while the corresponding figure for personal P&C lines was 19.8%.

The more fragmented nature of commercial P&C insurance relative to personal lines business at the global level shows in the top 200 insurer groups in each segment.

These were responsible for 82.3% of gross direct premiums written globally for personal P&C insurance, falling to 80.5% for commercial P&C insurance. The difference is due to personal lines being dominated by motor and home insurance, while the market for commercial P&C business is spread across diverse lines.

While the value of the global market for P&C insurance rose by 2.4% in 2020 (before adjusting for inflation), the performance of different insurer groups varied. With growth in P&C gross direct premiums written of 11.8% in 2020, China Life Insurance Group was the largest to achieve double-digit growth rate in the year.

In contrast, with premiums falling by 14.2%, and with exposure to some of the territories hit hardest by the pandemic, MAPFRE was the largest group to experience a double-digit rate of decline.

Overall, the most rapid growth rate of any group in Insuramore’s rankings for P&C insurance in 2020 was that of Bermuda-based Convex Group, which achieved a more than tenfold rise in its direct business.

Lloyd’s of London had gross direct premiums written for commercial P&C insurance of more than $28.5bn in 2020, but with syndicates belonging mainly to major insurer groups already in the ranking, Lloyd’s as a whole was not counted by Insuramore as a separate entity.