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Unto all good things a little rain must fall! Really?? icon

I wonder if the originator of the above phrase was also thinking of including hail, windstorm, and tornadoes?? I doubt it. I’ll bet the person did not work in the Insurance business. One month can make large difference in this business. In our case, this month was May. May of 2012 set an all time record for storm losses in a given month for MFM and a second place month in our history is not even close. Through March our first quarter Combined Ratio was an outstanding 87. We definitely needed a good first quarter, since May results alone pushed our Combined Ratio through June to 103. I emphasize May results exclusively caused this as April and June results individually were comparatively very quiet from a storm perspective. We saw no May flowers after our April showers this year.

All is not lost for this year’s underwriting results however. It is becoming evident that we have simply incurred more of our expected storm losses early this year. As mentioned June was an excellent month and our 3rd quarter has started in excellent fashion reducing our year to date combined ratio to 102 through July. Storms can still occur in August but I am now confident that we can reduce our Combined Ratio by 1 percentage point per month to year end. As such our business plan’s targeted 2012 Combined Ratio of 98 is well within reach.

Our premiums written increase has been very strong. Year to date we are up 9% in premiums written. All of our lines of business have grown in varying degrees. As you can imagine Homeowners and other property lines are producing our poor results due to storms but rate increases, particularly in Homeowners, are having desired impacts on our results. Even with the storm losses predominately incurred in May, the Homeowners line of business maintains a possibility of making a profit in 2012. Our modest rate increases over the last few years are having the desired impact on Homeowners results.

We saw storm activity in all parts of our region but the cities of Mitchell, South Dakota and St Cloud, Minnesota experienced the most severe damage. Almost all of our May claims have been adjusted. Numerous compliments from Agents and Insureds on our claims service are always well received and much appreciated. Quality claims service is a big part of our mission at Midwest Family and it is a big part of why you first entrust your customers to us and why these customers renew with us year after year.

Our year is progressing well. We appreciate your business.

Best regards,

Ron Boyd, CPCU
President and CEO


Posted on Thursday, August 09 @ 15:16:54 -05:00
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