Case Study — May 23, 2025
A U.S. Insurance Company Uncovers New Market Insights to Drive Business Development
THE CLIENT: A large U.S.-based multiline insurance company
USERS: Product management teams for personal and commercial lines of business
There was a sharp recovery in underwriting of personal lines of insurance in 2024 as a cumulative rate increase and other underwriting actions implemented from previous years took effect.1 On the commercial side, the favorable pricing trend subsided, but profit margins remained strong. Looking forward, ongoing geopolitical tensions and proposed trade policies are weighing on market sentiment, leading to concerns about earnings growth, investment asset valuation and shareholders’ balance sheet equity. With this economic uncertainty, members of product management teams are actively looking for new approaches to uncover business expansion opportunities with creditworthy individuals and companies.
Members of both the personal and commercial product management teams at this large U.S.-based insurance company knew they needed to enhance their business development activities to be successful in today's increasingly volatile and competitive environment. They thought specific datasets could help them uncover market insights to zero in on attractive prospects to meet their sales targets while minimizing unwanted negative exposure.
Pain Points
Members of the product management teams lacked the data and tools needed to more efficiently scan the market for viable opportunities. The personal team wanted intelligence to help:
- Map market opportunities by regions and product lines.
- Assess the financial performance of different insurance companies.
- Review pricing strategies across the market and evaluate trends in insurance rates.
- Understand how companies are responding to consumer preferences to develop competitive products.
- Be informed about underwriting criteria and risk factors to guide pricing models.
The commercial team wanted this intelligence too, as well as:
- The ability to easily search for prospects by region and industry,
- Profiles of public and private firms, including business descriptions and contact details.
- A clear view of potential credit risk with prospects.
The teams reached out to S&P Global Market Intelligence ("Market Intelligence") to learn more about the firm's insurance offerings.
The Solution
Specialists from Market Intelligence discussed several datasets that could deliver the information needed, as well as a variety of tools to measure credit risk. They then described S&P Capital IQ Pro, the powerful desktop platform for data access and analysis that is loaded with productivity-enhancing tools. Together these capabilities would enable the product management teams to:
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Analyze product pricing and industry trends |
The SNL Insurance Product Filings provide a comprehensive view of the rates, rules, forms and new program filings that insurers submit through the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing (SERFF) platform, as required by state regulations under the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). These filings are made to the respective departments of insurance (DOI) of each state to ensure regulatory oversight. Users can review pricing strategies across the market and assess trends in insurance rates and how companies are responding to consumer preferences to build and offer competitive products. With data on underwriting criteria and risk factors, insurers can get a better understanding of risk profiles to inform pricing models. Information includes:
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Assess the financial performance of competitors |
The SNL Insurance Regulatory Data provides financial data reported to various regulators across the world, including Canada's Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), Bermuda's Monetary Authority, and Europe's Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). Within the U.S., it captures financials disclosed to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). NAIC Insurance Statutory Data captures comprehensive financial data for 8,800+ Property & Casualty (P&C) and Life & Health (L&H) entities at company and group reporting levels, with additional SNL-created groups for better consolidation and representation. The subsets of this dataset include:
Insurance Statutory Schedule P: The actuarial section of the financials covering loss development and reserves. |
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Efficiently search for prospects |
Business Listings provides relevant details for businesses across North America, mapped to Capital IQ Pro-covered companies. This supports a broader market view and access to additional datasets linked to those companies through Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping. The dataset enhances research on prospects by incorporating historical market trends made possible with Absolute Probability of Default (APD) data. Business Listings helps assess the size of opportunities in current pipelines and identifies underwriting opportunities in new markets, supported by APD data. Information includes:
Advanced search capabilities to target prospects by area (e.g., city, county, or zip code), industry type, estimated revenues, employees and more. |
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Obtain consice estimates of underwriting risk |
RiskGauge provides credit scores[1] that align to S&P Global Ratings probabilities of default or a scale of 1-100 using extensive public and private datasets or internal data. Pre-calculated scores are also instantly available, covering small- and medium-sized enterprises, large corporations and financial institutions. |
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Better understand a company's business |
Company Intelligence provides profiles of public and private firms, including company contact information, competitors, financial auditors and summary or detailed-level business descriptions. |
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S&P Capital IQ Pro is an integrated market intelligence platform designed to accelerate decision-making with advanced business analytics, data visualizations and AI-based tools. The Market Share Tool lets users quickly assess competitive activity and pre-built Excel templates lets them input a few details, such as a timeframe and company name, and automatically receive a detailed report. |
Key Benefits
Members of both the personal lines and commercial lines product management teams were impressed with the breadth and depth of Market Intelligence's offering and subscribed to the services. They can now:
- Utilize extensive data to assess insurance prospects for different lines of business.
- Understand market trends and competitor pricing strategies to price policies accordingly.
- Easily assess the creditworthiness of companies before signing commercial policies.
- Save time and reduce errors by replacing manual data access and analysis with a set of powerful tools on S&P Capital IQ Pro.
The company is now investigating additional Market Intelligence capabilities to support other lines of business, including trade finance and insurance for directors and officers. They are also looking at S&P Global Physical Risk Data that provides asset and company-level physical risk measures to assess the impact of eight climate hazards on their portfolios, including extreme heat, coastal flooding and wildfire.