The short answer: your loss history is one thing an underwriter looks at. It is not the only thing, and some years it is not even the main thing. Carriers price the market you are in, the class of business you are in, and the file they already have on you. That file includes old inspection reports, submissions other agents sent years ago, your website, your OSHA log, your CAB report if you run vehicles, and your credit. A clean year helps. It does not erase a file that says the operation looks loosely run. And even with the market softening, commercial auto and umbrella are still going up.
It's one of the first questions owners ask me when we meet, usually with some heat behind it. "We didn't have a single claim. How is it going up?"
Fair question. Here is what is going on behind the number.
"But I thought the market was getting better"
It is, in places. We are coming out of the worst hard market since the mid-1980s, and property is where the relief shows up first. Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index had U.S. property rates down 13% in the second quarter of 2026. Globally, that was the eighth straight quarter of falling commercial rates.
Casualty went the other way. U.S. casualty was up 7% in the same quarter, and up 11% if you take workers' comp out of the mix. That is commercial auto, general liability and umbrella, pushed up by jury awards and litigation costs. If you run vehicles, a big share of your premium sits on the side of the market that is still hardening. A clean year doesn't change that.
Then there's how carriers use a softer market. When they have capital to put to work, they compete hardest for the accounts they like. The accounts with a messy file get the smallest share of the relief, or none of it.
That is usually the bigger piece. The file.
Underwriters remember
Every time your business goes to market, something gets written down. The application. The loss runs. The loss control report from the inspection three years ago that noted blocked exits and a missing guard on the table saw. The rating tier you were put in. A decline, and the reason for it.
None of that goes away because you fixed the exits. It sits in the carrier's system, and the next underwriter who opens your account starts from it.
It gets worse when a business has been shopped hard. Three agents send three submissions to the same carrier, each one a little different. Different payroll. Different description of operations. One says you do some roofing work, one doesn't. Now the underwriter isn't looking at your risk anymore. They're looking at the inconsistency, and they price the worst version or they pass.
I have watched good operations get declined for exactly that reason. The operation itself was fine. I would have insured it.
What they find before you ever apply
A lot of underwriting now happens before anyone calls you.
- Your website. If it says "specializing in hazardous demolition" and you mostly do interior renovation, guess which one gets rated.
- Your OSHA log and any public citations. Lost-time injuries show up here before they show up in your experience mod.
- Your CAB report, if you run vehicles. Out-of-service rates, driver violations, crashes. Underwriters pull it first, and most owners have never looked at theirs.
- Your credit and your Dun & Bradstreet file. Financial stress tracks with claims, and carriers know it.
- Sometimes your employee reviews. High turnover predicts injuries.
Add that up and the carrier has a picture of your company that may be three or four years out of date. Or just wrong.
A clean year doesn't fix a bad file
This is the part owners find frustrating. You did the work. Fewer injuries, better housekeeping, a real safety program. Then the renewal comes in and it looks like nobody noticed.
Usually nobody did. Improvement that isn't documented and put in front of the underwriter doesn't exist as far as they're concerned. They aren't going to go looking for your good news. You have to hand it to them.
Where I would start
Most owners have never seen their file the way an underwriter sees it. That's the first thing I'd look at, 120 days before your next renewal. Not 30.
A wood products manufacturer I wrote about in The 10 Laws of Insurance Attraction had been hit with big increases, partly industry-wide and partly from a poor presentation to the market. They put in real dust control, rebuilt their training, cleaned up the plant and documented all of it. Then we took it back to the underwriters as a new story with proof behind it. Their premium dropped more than 40% within two months.
Not every account moves that fast.
If your renewal went up this year and you don't know why, send me what you're looking at. Usually the answer is somewhere in the file.
Topics: commercial insurance renewal, premium increase with no claims, underwriting, loss control reports, CAB report, experience mod, commercial auto rates, insurance market 2026