Insurance
Home›Insurance›Industry & Deals›Brown & Riding hires property broker to navigate falli…
Brown & Riding hires property broker to navigate falling property rates
Catastrophe-exposed property rates have dropped 15% to 20% in 2025, pushing brokers to restructure multi-carrier layered placements to maintain margins.
Brown & Riding has added Omar Hasan to its National Property Practice, bringing nearly two decades of experience handling catastrophe-exposed and layered property programmes. The hire covers lines including builders risk, commercial real estate, gaming, habitational, hospitality, industrial, and retail risk, as the property market shifts and renewal economics change.
The move comes as catastrophe-exposed property rates fell 15% to 20% in 2025, and most syndicates are budgeting for another 10% reduction this year, according to RPS market data cited by Insurance Business. Layered and shared placements are seeing larger reductions at renewal, in the range of 10% to 30% based on USI’s 2026 outlook, and the outlet says that capturing the spread requires reworking tower structures across multiple carriers rather than simply renewing existing terms.
Insurance Business also points to a broader wholesale market trend where specialist brokerage skills are becoming more valuable as margins narrow. It cites Fitch Ratings data showing US E&S insurers have posted double-digit direct written premium growth for seven straight years, even as an estimated 91% of insurers have adopted AI in some form.
Commercial property renewal rates eased to 6.16% in July from 6.24% in June, continuing a retreat from an 8.01% average in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Ivans Index data mentioned in the article. The outlet says capacity is abundant in habitational, with wood-frame rates down 5% to 15% at renewal, while hospitality is only just bottoming out as underwriters weigh sexual misconduct liability and crime scores even as property-side pricing eases.