W.R. Berkley casualty reinsurance net premiums written fell 25% in Q3 2026

W.R. Berkley's reinsurance casualty net premiums written fell 25% in Q3 2026 to $144.2 million from $192.7 million a year earlier, Insurance Business America reported, citing the company's supplemental data. It was the steepest single-quarter drop in a contraction now three reporting periods long. Over the nine months to September the line is down 18% year on year.

Berkley said the reinsurance segment is likely to keep shrinking at roughly 10% to 20% for the foreseeable future, according to IBA, and the company accepts that as a natural consequence of maintaining pricing discipline.

On the earnings call, CEO W. Robert Berkley, Jr. named the reason: ceding commissions. "We just don't think it makes economic sense," he said, per IBA.

Berkley had flagged the mechanism in January 2026, when he said property catastrophe reinsurance rates had fallen 19% at the January 1 renewals and that reinsurers missing their property premium targets were leaning into casualty to compensate. That spillover, he said, had gone "more than we would have anticipated." By Q2 2026, management described reinsurance conditions as "particularly concerning."

The reinsurance and monoline excess segment as a whole wrote $368.6 million in net premiums for the quarter, against $417.2 million a year earlier. Insurance segment premiums grew 3.2%, lifting consolidated net premiums written to $3.3 billion and keeping the combined ratio at 90.8%. Within insurance, professional liability net premiums written rose to $322.4 million from $307 million, and other liability, the largest insurance line, wrote $1.13 billion.

The Q3 figures carry a straightforward read for anyone placing specialty casualty risk: capacity is being withdrawn from the reinsurance side by choice, not constrained by losses, and the company is routing what it will write into its insurance lines instead.