2026 Q3 Umbrella and Excess Wrap-Up: Market Observations from RPS Southern California

As 2026 rolls along, the Casualty market continues to keep everyone on their toes. Some accounts feel like a race to the bottom in terms of pricing and expansion of coverage, while others seem to be a never-ending stream of hurdles and challenging conversations with all parties involved.

As Q3 wraps up, here's a look at the current state of the Casualty market based on the placement activity we're seeing in Southern California.

Selectively Firm

While the Casualty market is considerably more predictable this year than in years past, it still carries with it the same characteristics discussed in each of this year's quarterly market updates: plentiful capacity for certain classes of business and attachment points, increased market competition, and more competitively-priced and comprehensively-covered programs when aggressive and thorough marketing is involved.

While the above isn't an epiphany, it's still crucial to understand and convey the same message to buyers — that the fundamental reasons why the Casualty market has shifted so drastically since 2019 haven't changed. Nuclear verdicts, plaintiff funding and social inflation continue to be headwinds. And as data from more recent accident years, like 2022-2023 and beyond, continue to trend and develop, there could be a continued mismatch between persistent Casualty claims severity and improving market competition.

Direction by Coverage

Current market conditions continue to indicate upward pressure in certain segments of the Excess and Umbrella Liability market, though likely at a slower pace than earlier in the cycle. Based on our Southern California book of business, our SoCal team anticipates middle to higher single-digit increases for most risks, and likely double-digit increases for distressed risks, due to social inflation, nuclear verdicts, selective capacity deployment and pressure on high-limit placements.

How Do We Gameplan This Market?

Detailed information and credible narratives continue to be highly valued by underwriters. The more questions the brokerage team can answer up front for an underwriter and their management team, the better. For example, things like verifiable telematics and camera data (and, more importantly, where that data is stored and analyzed), as well as claim closure information and employee/jobsite safety, all help the underwriting community work toward the price target or the best available price.

If the client is hesitant about asking the buyer for more information or the insured simply doesn't have any of the aforementioned best practices in place, they may be looked upon more negatively in the market than their peers who do (and who, in turn, may be obtaining more competitive and consistent insurance pricing). Partnering with a broker that has a plan, and knows how to execute that plan consistently, may help agents and insureds better navigate current market conditions.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to our Southern California Casualty team so we can partner and strategize with you to evaluate available market options for your clients.