US Property Insurance Buyers Get Their Best Market in Years as Capacity Returns, Artex Says, but Casualty and Data Centre Values Remain Challenges

Buyers of US commercial property insurance have a stronger hand than they have had for years. That is the message of The Alternative View, a spring 2026 report from Artex Risk Solutions, the captive and alternative-risk specialist, as covered by Reinsurance News. According to the report, US property insureds are eagerly taking advantage of the most favourable market conditions they have experienced in several years. Capacity is plentiful, and carriers are keen to grow their property portfolios. As a result, many insureds are renegotiating terms that had become restrictive during the hard market and, in some cases, are securing lower deductibles. This article summarises the Reinsurance News coverage of the report. An earlier version of this article described the relief as applying broadly across US commercial insurance. The report is clear that casualty is a different story, and the article now reflects that.

Why did conditions improve? Artex points to a benign year for catastrophes. In 2025, no hurricane made landfall in the United States for the first time since 2015. That helped offset losses from the January 2025 California wildfires. After years of above-average rate increases, catastrophe-driven layered and shared property programmes are now seeing rate relief. Layered and shared programmes are structures in which several insurers each take a slice of a large property risk, and they are the part of the market where price falls usually show up first when capital returns. The result for buyers is not just lower rates. It is also the ability to negotiate on terms, such as deductibles and sublimits, that often matter more to a claim than the headline price.

Is this just a US trend? The same pattern is visible elsewhere. WTW's specialty survey, summarised in a separate article on this site, found that property and energy rates saw the steepest falls at the January 2026 renewals. Lockton, in its fiscal 2026 results, also noted that global property rates have softened as capacity and competition rose. The three sources use different data, so they should not be combined into a single figure, but they point in the same direction.

What does Artex say is still difficult? The first issue is valuation. The report flags accurate property valuations as a challenge, especially for data centres, which it describes as one of the fastest-growing commercial property segments. Artex says hyperscale facilities can carry insured values of $1 billion to $5 billion, and many sit in remote areas with severe convective storm or wildfire exposure. If a building and its equipment are insured for less than their replacement cost, the buyer may find that a claim is not fully paid. If insurers underestimate the values at risk, they may be undercharging for the exposure. Either way, both sides have a reason to take valuations seriously.

The second issue is casualty. Artex argues that rate increases alone will not restore the sector's health. It says litigation funding and social inflation are impairing most casualty lines, and that social inflation drives claim severity more than rising costs do. Social inflation refers to claims costs rising faster than general inflation, because of larger court awards, more litigation and changing attitudes to liability. Nuclear verdicts, defined in the report as jury awards above $10 million, are rising, prompting carriers to raise attachment points, add exclusions and struggle to price risk. Commercial auto has been hit hardest. Citing the American Transportation Research Institute, Artex says the median nuclear verdict reached $36 million by 2022, a 50% increase over 2013.

What should buyers do? The report does not give a checklist, but the logic of its findings suggests some practical steps. Buyers can ask their brokers to test the market on property programmes at renewal, to seek broader terms and lower deductibles rather than only lower premiums, and to review valuations so that limits are adequate. For casualty, buyers should expect that price and terms may not improve, and may want to consider alternative structures. Artex is a provider of captive and alternative-risk services, so its report naturally pays attention to such options, and readers should keep in mind that it has a commercial interest in the subject.

What does it mean for insurers? A softening property market is a natural result of strong profits and returning capital. The risk is that prices fall faster than the underlying exposure, especially if the benign catastrophe year is followed by a more active one. The Artex report does not forecast the 2026 hurricane season, and nothing in it should be read as a prediction.

For the wider economy, property insurance is a cost of owning and building almost anything. Lower prices can help borrowers and developers, and the data centre boom adds a new type of risk that the market is still learning to value. This article reports Artex's views and is not investment advice.