The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, reported a strong fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. The company’s insurance subsidiaries wrote personal and commercial auto insurance, personal residential property insurance, and insurance for motorcycles, watercraft, and other recreational vehicles. Progressive also offered business-related general liability and commercial property insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and other specialty property-casualty insurance. The company operates throughout the United States and has a vision to become the number one destination for insurance and other financial needs. Progressive’s revenue and net income increased year-over-year, driven by growth in its personal auto and commercial lines businesses. The company’s total revenue reached $120.87 billion, with net income of $4.45 billion. As of January 31, 2025, Progressive had 586.21 million common shares outstanding.
I. OVERVIEW
The Progressive insurance organization has been offering insurance to consumers since 1937. The Progressive Corporation is a holding company that does not have any revenue producing operations, physical property, or employees of its own. The Progressive Corporation, together with its insurance and non-insurance subsidiaries and affiliates, comprise what we refer to as Progressive.
For the year ended December 31, 2024, we are reporting two operating segments – Personal Lines and Commercial Lines. Our Personal Lines segment, which represents 85% of companywide net premiums written, writes insurance for personal vehicles, which include autos and special lines products (e.g, recreational vehicles, such as motorcycles, RVs, and watercraft), personal residential property insurance for homeowners and renters, umbrella insurance, and flood insurance through the “Write Your Own” program for the National Flood Insurance Program. Our personal auto product comprises 90% of our Personal Lines net premiums written and just over 75% of our companywide premiums and has the biggest impact on our underwriting results. Our special lines and personal property insurance products each represent about 5% of our total Personal Lines premiums.
Our Commercial Lines segment writes auto-related liability and physical damage insurance, business-related general liability and commercial property insurance predominantly for small businesses, and workers’ compensation insurance primarily for the transportation industry and represents 15% of our companywide net premiums written. Our core commercial auto products, which excludes our transportation network company (TNC) business, our Progressive Fleet & Specialty Programs (Fleet & Specialty) products, and our business owners’ policy (BOP) product, represented 80% of our total Commercial Lines net premiums written and just over 10% of companywide premiums.
We operate both segments throughout the United States through both the independent agency and direct distribution channels. We are the second largest private passenger auto insurer in the U.S., the largest writer of motorcycle insurance, the eleventh largest homeowners insurance carrier, and the number one writer of commercial auto insurance, in each case based on 2023 premiums written.
Our underwriting operations, combined with our service and investment operations, make up the consolidated group.
A. Operating Results
Progressive reported strong year-over-year growth in both premiums written and policies in force, an underwriting profit better than our 4% companywide calendar-year underwriting profit goal in 2024, and a 50% increase in recurring investment income, compared to 2023.
We wrote $74.4 billion of net premiums written during 2024, which was $12.9 billion more than we generated during 2023. We ended 2024 with 35 million policies in force, or just over 5 million more policies in force than at the end of 2023. Our underwriting profit margin was 11.2%, which was 6.1 points better than the 5.1% underwriting margin we earned in 2023.
During 2024, companywide net premiums written and earned each increased 21%, over the prior year, and policies in force increased 18%. Both segments contributed to premium and policies in force growth year over year. Net premiums written and earned both grew 23% in Personal Lines and 8% in Commercial Lines. In Personal Lines and Commercial Lines, policies in force grew 18% and 4%, respectively. The Personal Lines growth was mainly attributable to increases in new personal auto applications generated from greater advertising spend, the lifting the non-rate actions we put in place in the personal auto business in 2023, and our continued efforts to work closely with our independent agents to leverage our agent compensation program to reward writing profitable business. In addition to new application growth, during 2024, we increased personal auto and core commercial auto rates 3% and 5% in the aggregate, respectively, compared to rate increases of 19% and 17% during 2023.
Both our Personal Lines and Commercial Lines operating segments generated strong profitability during the year, reporting underwriting profit margins of 11.4% and 10.6%, respectively, compared to 5.9% and 1.2% for 2023. Several factors contributed to the change in our underwriting profit. First, the average earned premium per policy was higher in our personal and commercial auto businesses than during 2023, primarily due to the rate increases we took during 2023 to meet our companywide profitability target.
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Second, in addition to rate increases, on a year-over-year basis for 2024, our incurred personal auto accident frequency decreased 5% and severity trends remained relatively stable, with a 1% increase over 2023. The companywide favorable prior accident years reserve development of 0.6 points during 2024, compared to unfavorable development during 2023 of 1.9 points, also contributed to our increased underwriting profitability. Our incurred catastrophe losses were fairly consistent on a year-over-year basis.
Lastly, partially offsetting the impact the improved loss ratio had on profitability, was a 2.4 point increase in our expense ratio over 2023, primarily driven by increased advertising expenses. During 2024, on a year-over-year basis, our companywide advertising spend increased 150%, bringing our 2024 advertising costs to $4.0 billion. We will continue to advertise to maximize growth as long as the advertising spend is efficient and we remain on track to achieve our target profitability.
For 2024, the year-over-year increase in underwriting profitability was the primary contributor to the $4.6 billion increase in net income. The remainder of the increase reflected an increase in recurring investment income, during 2024, primarily due to investing new cash from insurance operations and proceeds from maturing bonds in higher coupon rate securities.
Comprehensive income increased $3.6 billion over 2023. The increase in net income was in part offset by a relatively modest decrease of $0.2 billion in net unrealized losses on our fixed-maturity securities, compared to a $1.2 billion decrease in unrealized losses during 2023, which were primarily driven by the then-current economic environment.
We ended 2024 with total capital (debt plus shareholders’ equity) of $32.5 billion, which was up $5.3 billion from year-end 2023, primarily due to the $8.7 billion of comprehensive income earned during 2024, offset by the $2.9 billion, quarterly and annual-variable common share dividends declared during 2024 and the $0.5 billion redemption of our outstanding Serial Preferred Shares, Series B, in the first quarter 2024, as discussed in further detail below under Financial Condition.
B. Insurance Operations
Personal Lines is comprised of our personal vehicle and property products. Our Personal Lines vehicles include both personal autos and our special lines products. Our personal vehicle and property products produced underwriting profits of 11.9% and 1.7%, respectively, for 2024. In total, our special lines products had a minimal impact on our total Personal Lines vehicle combined ratio for the year. Our personal property business generated an underwriting profit for the second consecutive year.
Our Commercial Lines segment includes our core commercial auto products, our TNC business, our Fleet & Specialty products, and our BOP product. Our total Commercial Lines underwriting profitability for 2024 was 10.6%.
During 2024, our personal auto and core commercial auto businesses’ profitability benefited from higher average earned premium per policy, lower incurred loss frequency trends, and, in personal auto, favorable prior accident years reserve development. As a result of the rate actions we took during 2023 to help achieve our target profit margin, we currently believe that, in most states, we are adequately priced in our personal auto product and in our core commercial auto product we expect to have relatively modest rate increases in 2025. Our TNC business generated a calendar-year underwriting profit in 2024, as a result of the rate increases taken on this business in 2024 and prior years to achieve our target profitability.
We will continue to monitor the factors that could impact our loss costs for both our personal vehicle and property businesses, which may include new and used car prices, miles driven, driving patterns, loss severity, weather events, building materials, construction costs, inflation, tariffs, and other factors, on a state-by-state basis. Aggregate personal auto rate changes during 2024 were modest, relative to the prior two years, and we expect rates to stay relatively stable in 2025. In our personal property business, we increased rates about 19% countrywide, in the aggregate during 2024, and we expect continued rate increases in 2025.
Throughout the first half 2024, we continued to lift the temporary non-rate actions implemented in prior years in our personal auto and core commercial auto businesses, as our focus shifted from achieving our target profit margin to driving growth, delivering competitive rates to consumers, and continuing to provide a high-quality customer experience to our policyholders.
For 2024, both segments generated strong net premiums written growth. Personal Lines net premiums written grew 23%, with the agency and direct personal vehicle businesses growing 21% and 27%, respectively, and personal property growing 8%. Commercial Lines net premiums written also grew 8%, with the majority of the growth generated from our contractor and business auto business market targets (BMT).
Changes in net premiums written are a function of new business applications (i.e., policies sold), business mix, premium per policy, and retention.
During 2024, we experienced a significant increase in total Personal Lines new business applications, with increases in both our personal vehicle and personal property products. The increase in the total segment new business applications was primarily driven by our personal auto business, and reflects increased advertising spend, the lifting of the
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personal auto non-rate restrictions, and our efforts to get back into the independent agents’ quote flows. New personal auto applications increased 44% in 2024, compared to the prior year.
New applications in our personal property business were up 31%, driven by significant growth in our renters policies. The new application growth in our homeowners/condo products was up 3% on a year-over-year basis for 2024, with growth in less volatile weather-related states being almost fully offset by decreases in new applications in more volatile weather-related states (e.g., coastal and hail-prone states).
Throughout 2024, in our personal property business, we continued to focus on improving profitability and reducing exposure in more volatile markets and, where permitted, slowed growth and non-renewed policies. We prioritized insuring lower-risk properties (e.g., new construction, existing homes with newer roofs), accepting new business for homeowners/condo products only when bundled with a Progressive personal auto policy, where permitted, and began exiting the non-owner occupied home market. In addition, we expanded our cost sharing through mandatory wind and hail deductibles and roof depreciation schedules in markets where permitted. We plan to continue these actions to improve our personal property profitability and reduce exposure during 2025 in the more volatile markets.
New applications in our core commercial auto business increased 8% during 2024, compared to 2023, primarily due to an increase in quote volume and improved conversion in all of our BMTs, other than for-hire transportation and for-hire specialty, as discussed below. Excluding the impact of the for-hire transportation BMT, which had a year-over-year decrease in new applications, our core commercial auto new application growth would have been 15% during 2024. The for-hire transportation BMT continues to be adversely impacted by challenging freight market conditions that have caused a decline in the active number of motor carriers in this BMT.
During 2024, on a year-over-year basis, average written premium per policy grew 8% in personal auto and 5% in core commercial auto products. The growth in our personal and commercial auto products primarily reflected rate increases taken throughout 2023. The rate increases taken in commercial auto were, in part, offset by a shift in the mix of business, primarily driven by decreased demand in our for-hire transportation BMT.
For our personal property business, average written premium per policy was down 5% year over year. Our mix of business shifted as we continued to focus on growing in less volatile weather states, which generally have less risk and, therefore, lower average premiums per policy than more volatile weather-related states. We are also seeing a mix shift towards more renters policies, which have lower average written premiums. These mix shifts in our personal property business were partially offset by rate increases
taken over the last 12 months and higher premium coverages reflecting increased property values. Given that our commercial auto and personal property policies are predominately written for 12-month terms, rate actions take longer to earn in for these products.
We believe a key element in improving the accuracy of our personal auto rating is Snapshot ® , our usage-based insurance offering. During 2024, the adoption rates for consumers enrolling in the program decreased 9% in agency auto and increased 6% in direct auto, compared to 2023. During the second half of 2024, the agency auto adoption rate was up significantly, compared to the first half of the year, due to a shift in the mix of agencies through which we wrote new business, as we continued to relax restrictions on new business throughout 2024 and get back into the independent agents’ quote flows. The increase in the direct auto adoption rate primarily reflected enhancements in the direct quoting process, in addition to the continued rollout of our newest Snapshot model. Snapshot is available in all states, other than California, and our latest segmentation model was available in states that represented about 75% of our countrywide personal auto net premiums written (excluding California) at year-end 2024. We continue to invest in our mobile application, with the majority of new enrollments choosing mobile devices for Snapshot monitoring.
We realize that to grow policies in force, it is critical that we retain our customers for longer periods. Consequently, increasing retention continues to be one of our most important priorities. Our efforts to increase our share of Progressive auto and home bundled households (i.e., Robinsons) remains a key initiative and we plan to continue to make investments to improve the customer experience in order to support that goal. Policy life expectancy, which is our actuarial estimate of the average length of time that a policy will remain in force before cancellation or lapse in coverage, is our primary measure of customer retention in our Personal Lines and Commercial Lines businesses.
We evaluate personal auto retention using a trailing 12-month and a trailing 3-month policy life expectancy. Although the latter can reflect more volatility and is more sensitive to seasonality, this measure is more responsive to current experience and may be an indicator for the future trend of our 12-month measure. Our trailing 12-month total personal auto policy life expectancy was down 4% year over year, with agency personal auto up 2% and direct down 7%. On a trailing 3-month basis, our personal auto policy life expectancy was down 4% year over year, which we believe is due to increased shopping and the competitiveness in the marketplace.
Our trailing 12-month policy life expectancy was flat for special lines products and decreased 12% and 14% for personal property and core commercial auto, respectively. Our personal property retention decreased primarily as a result of a mix shift to more renters policies, which
generally have a lower policy life expectancy, while rate increases and our plans to non-renew policies also contributed to the decrease. The decrease in the core commercial auto policy life expectancy was across all BMTs, and reflected rate and non-rate actions taken in 2023 to achieve our target profitability, as well as the continued decrease in demand in the for-hire transportation BMT.
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C. Investments
The fair value of our investment portfolio was $80.3 billion at December 31, 2024, compared to $66.0 billion at December 31, 2023. The increase from year-end 2023 primarily reflected cash flows from insurance operations and positive investment returns, partially offset by the payment of our quarterly and annual variable common share dividends and the redemption of all of our outstanding Serial Preferred Shares, Series B.
Our asset allocation strategy is to maintain 0%-25% of our portfolio in Group I securities, with the balance (75%-100%) of our portfolio in Group II securities (the securities allocated to Group I and II are defined below under Results of Operations – Investments ). At December 31, 2024 and 2023, 6% and 7%, respectively, of our portfolio was allocated to Group I securities with the remainder to Group II securities.
Our recurring investment income generated a pretax book yield of 3.9% for 2024, compared to 3.1% for 2023. The
increase from prior year primarily reflected investing new cash from insurance operations, and proceeds from maturing bonds, in higher coupon rate securities. Our investment portfolio produced a fully taxable equivalent (FTE) total return of 4.6% for 2024 and of 6.3% for 2023. Our fixed-income and common stock portfolios had FTE total returns of 3.8% and 22.9%, respectively, for 2024, compared to 5.4% and 26.7%, respectively, for 2023. The decrease in the fixed-income portfolio FTE total return primarily reflected movement in U.S. Treasury yields year over year. The increase in the common stock portfolio FTE total return reflected general market conditions.
At both December 31, 2024 and 2023, the fixed-income portfolio had a weighted average credit quality of AA- . At December 31, 2024, the fixed-income portfolio duration was 3.3 years, compared to 3.0 years at December 31, 2023. During 2024, we increased our duration to take advantage of higher yields in the market.
At December 31, 2024, we continued to maintain a relatively conservative investment portfolio with a greater allocation to cash and treasuries. We believe that this portfolio allocation, coupled with a lack of maturities of our outstanding debt until 2027, positions us well to benefit from the current dynamic interest rate environment. We believe that we are in a very strong position as we move into 2