U.S. General Aviation Admitted Market Posts $3.0 Billion in 2025 Premium, Up 0.5%, as Incurred Losses Hit 23-Year High of $1.7 Billion

The U.S. General Aviation (USGA) admitted insurance market reported $3.0 billion in direct written premium for 2025, 0.5% higher than in 2024, effectively halting several consecutive years of premium growth. The figures come from a review of year-end 2025 statutory annual statement data for the "Aircraft (All Peril)" line of business, obtained from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The review excludes insurers with surplus line eligibility or domestication, which make up most of the market for U.S. large aviation risk such as airline and major product liability.

Cumulative premium growth since 2018 stands at 88%, from $1.6 billion in 2018 to 2025, the largest increase in written premium since the period immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Growth outpaced the total property/casualty market over the period, though lines affected by climate change (homeowners/farmowners and fire/allied) or social inflation (general liability and commercial auto liability) showed similar or higher growth. Based on second quarter 2026 results, the authors see signs of a 2026 premium decline, possibly in the low- to mid-single digits.

Incurred losses reached $1.7 billion in 2025, a 23-year high, continuing a trajectory in which losses have risen an average of 9.0% a year since 2014. With premium and exposure steady from 2014 to 2018, the rise reflected a worsening claims environment rather than growing exposure. Calendar year 2023 through 2025 loss ratios are generally consistent with the post-9/11 years through 2015, but claim costs remain a challenge for the industry.

FAA data show the number of active aircraft has been consistent over the past decade. The FAA forecasts the active fleet to grow 0.6% per year through 2046, a slight upward revision from the prior forecast of 0.5%, and average hours flown per active aircraft to rise 0.5% per year, up from a prior forecast of 0.3%. The combined exposure growth of about 1.0% per year suggests that any substantial market growth would come from rate changes in response to the claims environment rather than exposure.

The USGA market represents less than 0.5% of the total property/casualty industry. Insurers writing at least $1 million in annual aircraft premium derive on average about 5% of their business from USGA, and cede roughly 50% of premium to reinsurers.

On underwriting, the market lost approximately $700 million between 2016 and 2020, including nearly $300 million on $1.8 billion of premium in 2019. Rate increases then brought small underwriting profits each year from 2021 through 2025, and profits in 2023 through 2025 returned to pre-2016 levels. Profitability of 4% of earned premium in 2021 and 2022 lagged the post-9/11 historical average.

Of 30 companies writing at least $10 million of premium in 2025, seven entered after 2019 and hold a combined 6% market share, indicating new insurers have not flooded the market.

A market that grew premium 88% since 2018 has now flattened at $3.0 billion, and the authors already point to a possible low- to mid-single-digit decline in 2026. Because fleet and flying hours are projected to grow only about 1.0% a year combined, premium has little organic exposure growth to lean on. Whether premium rises or falls from here depends mainly on rate decisions made against the claims record.

That record is the pressure point: incurred losses have climbed 9.0% a year on average since 2014 and now stand at a 23-year high. Underwriting profits since 2021 were earned during a period of rate increases, so a soft or declining premium line meeting steady loss costs squeezes the margin that restored profitability. The absence of a rush of new entrants, with seven post-2019 insurers holding a combined 6% share, means capacity discipline has not yet been tested by outsiders.

The next datapoint is the 2026 year-end statutory filings, which will show whether the second-quarter signs of a premium decline carried through the full year and how incurred losses moved against it.