Marsh Just Reported U.S. Excess Casualty Rates Rose 18% In Q1 2026, And It Changes Your 2026 Casualty Renewal Math

Marsh McLennan disclosed on its April 16, 2026 earnings call that U.S. excess casualty rates rose 18 percent in the first quarter of 2026. The figure came from President and CEO John Doyle as part of the broker's quarterly rate environment review. For a VP of Insurance Risk preparing the 2026 renewal budget, this is the cleanest single number from the entire Q1 earnings cycle. The figure is broker-side rather than carrier-side, expressed as rate rather than pricing, and disclosed by the largest commercial broker in the world. Each of those three properties matters for how to interpret what comes next.

This piece is part of a series drawn from our review of nine Q1 2026 insurance carrier and broker earnings calls held between April 16 and April 29, 2026.

What did Marsh McLennan actually disclose about U.S. excess casualty?

Doyle's full statement on the rate environment was specific and quantified. From the Q1 2026 call: “Global property rates decreased 9% year-over-year, which was the same pace as last quarter. Global Financial and Professional liability rates were down 5%, while cyber also decreased 5%. Global Casualty rates increased 3% with U.S. excess casualty up 18%, reflecting ongoing pressure in the liability permit, and workers' compensation decreased 1%.”

The phrase “reflecting ongoing pressure in the liability permit” is the analyst signal. Doyle is telling the market that the 18 percent number is structural rather than transitory, and concentrated at the excess casualty layer specifically. That layer is the one most enterprise programs use to satisfy contractual indemnity and risk transfer requirements with their customers and counterparties.

Business Insurance covered the call with a similar framing, noting that overall global commercial insurance rates fell 5 percent led by a 9 percent decline in property, but flagging the U.S. excess casualty number as the key directional move of the quarter.

Why is U.S. excess casualty up 18 percent while global casualty is only up 3 percent?

Casualty severity in the U.S. has decoupled from the rest of the world for a set of structural reasons, and three Q1 2026 carrier disclosures confirm the pattern.

Markel CEO Simon Wilson described the mechanism on the April 29, 2026 earnings call: “what we're seeing in the U.S. is that when we see cases going to court or being settled, those numbers are often a lot bigger now than they were maybe 8, 9, 10 years ago. People call that social inflation.”

W.R. Berkley CEO Rob Berkley acknowledged the industry's response on the company's April 21, 2026 call: “On reserve duration, I think that we all know that the industry got caught a bit flat footed with inflation, particularly social inflation. And it has been a bit of a process of catch up.”

Travelers CEO Alan Schnitzer pointed to tort reform as a partial offset on the company's April 16, 2026 call, citing progress in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Reform is directional rather than a national reset, and the 18 percent excess casualty number reflects the gap between where rates are and where carriers think they need to be.

What does an 18 percent excess casualty rate increase do to a corporate renewal?

The bite shows up at the lead excess layer, but the consequence cascades through the casualty stack. Three changes happen together.

Rate uplift on existing capacity. A $10 million expiring lead excess at $200,000 of premium becomes roughly $230,000 to $250,000 on a flat-exposure renewal, before any restructuring. Mid-excess and high-excess layers see uplift too, though typically at smaller percentages than the lead.

Capacity reduction per layer. Brown & Brown CEO Powell Brown described the supply-side reality on the company's April 28, 2026 call: “the ability to get higher limits is extremely challenging. Pricing continue to increase, primary layers are becoming more expensive and carriers are decreasing the limits they'll offer.” Programs that previously used three carriers in the casualty tower may now need four or five to fill the same limits.

Carrier exits in the contractor segment. Markel publicly reduced construction exposure from 40 to 45 percent of its specialty book to roughly 20 percent. Selective Insurance CEO John Marchioni disclosed on the April 23, 2026 earnings call that “our relative exposure to contractors has declined within our new business mix, reflecting our efforts to diversify and improve margin durability.” Programs with contractor exposure see fewer competing quotes during marketing.

How should a VP of Insurance Risk model this in the renewal budget?

A three-step model that tracks the carrier and broker disclosures. Call it the Renewal Math Adjustment.

Step 1: layer-by-layer rate uplift assumption. Primary GL plus 8 to 15 percent. Lead excess plus 15 to 25 percent, anchored to the Marsh 18 percent number as the high-case sensitivity. Mid-excess plus 10 to 20 percent. High excess variable. Workers compensation flat to slightly down per Marsh's negative 1 percent disclosure.

Step 2: capacity buffer. Assume 10 to 20 percent of expiring capacity needs to be replaced or restructured, especially if the program has contractor exposure. Each replacement layer adds friction cost in broker commission, underwriter time, and potential coverage variance.

Step 3: portfolio bifurcation offset. Marsh disclosed global property rates down 9 percent year-over-year. For property-heavy portfolios in real estate, manufacturing, or retail with large physical footprint, the property savings partially offset the casualty increase. For liability-heavy portfolios in services, contracting, healthcare, or transportation, there is no offset.

Sensitivity-test the model with the 18 percent number as the upper bound. Document the model so the CFO conversation has external supporting data rather than a vendor estimate.

How does the property side of the portfolio offset the casualty pain?

Marsh's 9 percent global property rate decline is real and worth modeling explicitly. Brown & Brown framed the same pattern on its April 28, 2026 call: “EMS rates will remain bifurcated with casualty increasing and CAT property decreasing at levels similar to the first quarter.”

For VPs of Insurance Risk presenting total cost of risk to the CFO, do not blend the two lines. Property savings can mask the casualty story, which becomes a problem at the next renewal cycle when the property side normalizes and the casualty momentum continues. Present property and casualty separately. The CFO conversation is more defensible when the bifurcation is visible on the page.

What should the underwriter conversation look like at this renewal?

Selective Insurance CEO John Marchioni framed the question every commercial insured will increasingly hear from their own carrier, on the April 23, 2026 call: “when you have contractors who are involved on either a subcontracting or a general contracting basis, you've got really good information around the contracts that are in place to understand whether or not you're assuming risk from another party to the contract that you didn't anticipate.”

That is the underwriter's question, framed by a public carrier CEO. Any insured with a meaningful supplier or contractor base will be asked some version of it at the next renewal. The strongest answer is documented, structured, and produced from a system rather than from a folder of PDFs.

The renewal underwriter wants to see how insurance requirements are set across the supplier base, how policies are monitored between renewals, how carrier substitutions on supplier COIs are flagged and reviewed, how exceptions are handled when a supplier cannot meet contractual requirements, and how the audit trail supports the answer over time.

What does it take to produce the supplier compliance documentation underwriters want?

The documentation challenge is straightforward to describe but operationally hard to deliver. The underwriter wants to see that the company has continuous visibility into supplier coverage rather than a folder of certificates collected at onboarding. Three operational requirements follow from that.

The data has to be live. A certificate that was valid at issuance and invalid six months later does not answer the underwriter's question. The supplier's insurance status has to update continuously, not at annual review.

The data has to trace back to the source. Self-attested supplier coverage information is not auditable. Documentation that connects directly to the carrier or broker of record is.

The system has to produce an audit trail. A defensible record of what the company knew about each supplier's coverage at any point in time is the difference between describing a compliance program and evidencing one.

Smart COI is the category name for a live carrier-connected insurance verification model, an approach that replaces static PDF certificates with a direct data feed from the supplier's carrier or broker. When the supplier's policy changes through cancellation, limit reduction, vehicle removal from an auto schedule, or carrier substitution, the change appears in the buyer's dashboard automatically. The compliance status reflects what is actually in force rather than what was in force at onboarding.

Certificial built the Smart COI category. The platform supports configurable compliance requirements by supplier category and tier, which lets the renewal documentation match the program structure the underwriter is reviewing. Integration with procurement and TPRM platforms most enterprises already use (Graphite Connect, Apexanalytix, Achilles, Aravo) keeps the work inside existing systems rather than as a separate compliance project. The audit trail documents what the company knew about each supplier's coverage at any point in time, which is what the renewal underwriter is increasingly asking to see.

For VPs of Insurance Risk preparing the 2026 renewal, this is part of the renewal asset base rather than a separate compliance project. The documentation is produced as a system output, not a manual report compiled the week before the underwriter meeting.

Close

The 18 percent number is the single most defensible data point for the 2026 casualty renewal conversation. The figure is broker-side rather than carrier-side, expressed as rate rather than pricing, and sourced from the largest commercial broker's public earnings call. Build the renewal model with that number as the high-case anchor for the lead excess. Bring the supplier compliance program documentation to the underwriter meeting. The combination of the two is the strongest position to take into a 2026 casualty renewal.

About this analysis

This piece is part of a series drawn from our review of nine Q1 2026 insurance carrier and broker earnings calls held between April 16 and April 29, 2026. Companies covered: Marsh McLennan, Travelers, W.R. Berkley, Chubb, Selective Insurance, RLI Corp, The Hartford, Brown & Brown, Markel Group. Quotes were extracted from published transcripts and verified against secondary sources.

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