Insurance - Property & Casualty: July 2026 Personal Auto Insurance Rate Filings

Research evidence excerpt

M

Update

August 5, 2026 02:34 PM GMT

Insurance - Property & Casualty | North America

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Bob Jian Huang

Equity Analyst

July 2026 Personal Auto

Insurance Rate Filings

Daniel Lee, ACAS

Research Associate

Siddhant Shah

Research Associate

Auto insurance rate filings saw an overall -0.2% rate decrease

for July 2026. With intense competition in the personal auto

space, we expect auto pricing to remain negative in 2026 as

carriers focus on new business growth & improving customer

retention.

Insurance - Property & Casualty

North America

Industry View

Attractive

Stable pricing implies less earnings volatility going into 2027. Personal auto rate

filings in July 2026 saw an overall premium weighted average rate decrease of -0.2%

for the P&C industry, impacting ~$61b of auto premiums ( Exhibit 1 ). Given the

industry's current profit margins, negative overall pricing should persist in 2026 as

competition intensifies. However, the rate filing in the recent months are not

showing pricing deterioration, leading us to believe that carriers are generally

careful with competition and pricing. We expect the personal auto market to remain

favorable for the foreseeable future. Pricing is becoming more granular, with

targeted rate reductions rather than broad-based cuts, while carriers continue to

increase advertising and customer acquisition efforts. Despite the softer pricing

environment, strong pricing sophistication, segmentation, and underwriting

discipline should support profitable market share gains for the larger direct auto

carriers.

Exhibit 1:

Overall P&C industry had an overall premium weighted average rate

change of -0.2% effective July 2026 for Personal Auto

Premium-Weighted Avg Filed Rate Change (%)

Total P&C Industry - Personal Auto Insurance Rate Filings

14.0

12.0

10.0

8.0

6.0

4.0

2.0

0.0

-2.0

-4.0

-6.0

Renewal Business Effective Month

Premium Wgt Avg Filed Rate Chg (%) - Trailing 6mos

Source: SNL, Morgan Stanley Research

Premium Wgt Avg Filed Rate Chg (%) - TTM

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