No end in sight for commercial lines soft market as 10.8% GWP drop marks fifth quarter of falls

The UK commercial lines market saw a 10.8% year-on-year drop in gross written premium (GWP) in the final quarter of 2025, reinforcing the 11.7% drop seen in the prior quarter and evaporating hopes of a market turnaround after five successive quarters of yearly income falls.

The findings come from the latest version of the Insurance Times Commercial Lines Premium Index – released today (3 March 2026) in association with software house Open GI – which provides an objective overview of trends in the UK’s commercial lines sector by analysing billions of pounds of GWP placed by hundreds of brokers via Open GI’s insurance software.

While the Q4 numbers showed a marginal 0.9 percentage point improvement on those of Q3, the sustained falls highlight a sharp departure from the positivity around a possible reversal of the soft market seen in recent times.

Nick Giddings, director of brokers and MGAs at Open GI, explained: “Across the board, our commercial lines figures show brokers, MGAs and insurers operating in the space are doing so in a continuing soft market.

“As providers fight for business in a soft market, we aren’t seeing any indication that the geopolitical issues, climate problems or general instability affecting the wider world is going to settle down.

“This volatile environment that contributes to claims inflation and impacts risk and pricing remains highly unpredictable, making crystal ball gazing even more challenging.”

Sector-wide drops

Diving deeper than the headline figures, it becomes clear that the 10.8% year-on-year GWP drop was driven by universal softening across all major lines.

Packages – multiple coverage types bundled into a single policy – saw the biggest earnings fall, plummeting by 18.8% between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025.

Commercial combined (-15.1%), combined liability (-13.5%) and specialist lines (-10.9%) also registered meaningful premium drops.

Fleet cover and property owners performed somewhat better, both falling by 6.1% between years, while income from contractors and tradesmen policies retained the most value, falling by just 4.1%.

Recovery shoots

While both the third and fourth quarters of 2025 saw year-on-year GWP drops across all major lines, insurers and brokers may draw optimism from the fact that a subset of lines have seen a slowing in the rate of decreases.

Giddings explained: “Turning to what we can see and comparing Q3 to Q4, while an uptick in premium seems unlikely in the near future, we are seeing movement in some product lines.

“There are indications of recovery in property owners and contractors and tradesman, while fleet has avoided major drops – this points to the more commoditised sections of the market where premiums tend to be lower being on a less steep trajectory.

“Areas where insurers and brokers can apply those personal lines tactics and technology are clearly feeling the benefit, but it is a mixed bag outside of those areas.”

Indeed, the property owners line saw GWP falls slow from 10.5% year-on-year in Q3 2025 to 6.1% in Q4. Likewise, contractors and tradesmen improved from a 10.4% drop to a 4.1% drop between quarters.

Fleet also largely held its value, posting falls of 5.7% and 6.2% consecutively.

As highlighted by Giddings, lines outside the more commoditised section of the market saw erratic performances. Commercial combined saw a -7.4 percentage point swing between quarters, while conversely combined liability saw a 6.5 percentage point improvement.

The green shoots do not hide the fact that each of the major lines has seen sustained and dramatic GWP falls across the past five quarters, however. Insurers and brokers will have to continue waiting patiently for any meaningful change to the soft market environment.