Workers Compensation Insurance – A $55 billion industry – Who are the top players in the US market?

$55,385,227,000! That’s the amount of direct premiums written in 2014. That’s how big the workers compensation industry is in the US and Canada markets. Wouldn’t you like to know the top players in this giant financial market?

Here’s a list of the top 20 workers compensation insurance carriers in 2014 ranked by written premium most to least:

  1. Travelers Group 
  2. Hartford Insurance Group
  3. American International Group (AIG)
  4. Liberty Mutual Insurance Companies
  5. Zurich Financial Services NA Group
  6. State Insurance Fund WC Fund
  7. AmTrust Group
  8. Berkshire Hathaway Insurance
  9. State Comp Insurance Fund CA
  10. Old Republic Insurance Group
  11. W. R. Berkley Insurance Group
  12. Great America P & C Insurance Group
  13. Chubb Group of Insurance Companies
  14. Ace INA Group
  15. Texas Mutual Insurance Company
  16. Accident Fund Group
  17. Fairfax Financial (USA) Group
  18. CNA Insurance Companies
  19. Employers Insurance Group
  20. ICW Group

This group of top twenty work comp insurance carriers accounted for $35,186,482,000 of the total $55,385,227,000 which turns out to be about 63% of the entire direct written premiums for this industry in 2014. Those are impressive numbers!

Out of this list only five insurance carriers exclusively provide workers compensation coverage. (They only write workers compensation insurance, no other lines of insurance.)

They are:

  1. State Fund WC Fund (New York)
  2. State Compensation Insurance Fund (California)
  3. Texas Mutual Insurance Company
  4. Accident Fund Group
  5. Employers Insurance Group

The largest provider of workers compensation insurance is Travelers Group, where workers compensation premiums make up approximately 19% of their total company premiums generated.

If you’re a return reader to this blog you know that I often write about problems that employers, policyholders and insurance agents experience when mistakes or errors occur in the premium generating part of a workers compensation policy. We often talk about how and why those problems occur and sometimes about how to have them corrected.

Think about it. In a $55 billion industry like this, how many mistakes have been made in premiums presented to employers? Chances are there’s are quite a few!

Now think about all of those mistakes on all of those policies that have never been discovered. How many millions of dollars of mistakes are out there? That number must be staggering!

Don’t get me wrong! Workers compensation insurance companies, including the ones I listed above, deliver some of the best products with some of the best service provided by some of the best people of any industry I know!

It’s just that in an industry of this size, it’s not hard for an employer to get lost in the dust. It’s not hard for a single policy to have a large premium error. And the worst part of that is the idea that so many individual policyholders, employers and agents may not even be aware that a problem exists.

So take a look at the above list of carriers, you may even recognize one as your insurance company, and think about how big the workers compensation industry really is and then remember these things:

  • Always review your workers compensation audits for accuracy –
  • Watch out for classification code changes at audit –
  • Provide your auditor with concise, accurate payroll information –
  • Watch out for uninsured subcontractors –
  • Communicate changes within your operations to your insurance agent and maybe even your insurance company underwriter – (keep written documentation of communications)
  • And when you come up against a problem you can’t seem to fix on you own, contact a workers compensation consultant for help! Sure, that’s what we do!

Hope this helps you out and thanks for reading!

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