Nationwide shrinks losses

Nationwide has released the Q2 2024 financial results for its P&C insurance carriers.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, which writes and assumes the majority of premiums written by Nationwide P&C companies, had a net underwriting loss of $187.5 million for the first six months of the year, a significant decrease compared to the $1.5 billion loss that was reported for the same period last year.

Direct written premiums for the period stood at $1.75 billion, an 11% decrease compared to the same period last year. The carrier, through reinsurance arrangements with group companies, assumed $8.9 billion of written premiums for the first six months of the year, a 9% decrease compared to the same period last year.

Based on our analysis, combined ratio for the first six months of the year was ~102%, a ~14-point improvement compared to the same period last year.

Last year, Nationwide implemented underwriting restrictions to mitigate risk and manage the personal and commercial lines portfolios in the current environment, and earlier this year, the company said it would drop coverage for ~100k pets across the country due to inflation, cost of veterinary care, and other factors.

While the company reported a year of record sales in 2023, driven primarily by the performance of its financial services business group, its P&C business achieved poor results over the last couple of years – in 2023 and 2022, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company had an underwriting loss of $2.3 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively.