Streaming giant Roku has confirmed a second security incident in as many months, with hackers this time able to compromise more than half a million Roku user accounts. In a statement Friday, the company said about 576,000 user accounts were accessed using a technique known as credential stuffing, where malicious hackers use usernames and passwords stolen from other data breaches and reuse the logins on other sites. Roku said in fewer than 400 account breaches, the malicious hackers made fraudulent purchases of Roku hardware and streaming subscriptions using the payment data stored in those users’ accounts. Roku said it refunded customers affected by the account intrusions. The company, which has 80 million customers, said the malicious hackers “were not able to access sensitive user information or full credit card information.” Roku said it discovered the second incident while it was notifying some 15,000 Roku users that their accounts were compromised in an earlier credential stuffing attack. Following the security incidents, Roku said it rolled out two-factor authentication to users. Two-factor authentication prevents credential stuffing attacks by adding an additional layer of security to online accounts. By prompting a user to enter a time-sensitive code along with their username and password, malicious hackers cannot break into a user’s account with just a stolen password.    

Ahead of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, FloodFlash, the first insurance technology company to offer sensor-enabled parametric flood insurance, is launching a product to support business interruption (BI) coverage in the United States.

“Flooding causes billions of dollars in losses across the US every year yet only 20% of those losses are covered by insurance - and a massive part of that uninsured loss comes from business interruption. The BI options on the market are too few and offered too rarely. ”

With a widely predicted hyperactive hurricane season, many experts anticipate huge losses from property damage and BI that could devastate businesses and communities for months on end. Flood BI has been created because many businesses and public entities are unable to get BI cover. It isn't included under National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policies and private carriers rarely offer standalone BI. FloodFlash hopes to support the many organisations at risk of flooding, not just in the Gulf and Eastern seaboard, but across the US. FloodFlash US Commercial Director Rich Coyle said: “Flooding causes billions of dollars in losses across the US every year yet only 20% of those losses are covered by insurance - and a massive part of that uninsured loss comes from business interruption. The BI options on the market are too few and offered too rarely. “We couldn’t be more excited to launch Flood BI. It takes the same principles of the FloodFlash product and applies them for a truly under-served section of the market. To the thousands of businesses at risk of flooding that rely on their premises to provide goods, hospitality, healthcare and more, we can now say Flood BI is here to help.” Key product features: - no limitations on how clients spend their parametric claim payment, Flood BI can cover any and all aspects of BI including non-damage BI and denial of access. - The rapid-payment claims in keeping with the core FloodFlash offering mean that claimants receive the full value of their policy within weeks of flooding. - FloodFlash provides expert support throughout the process, helping on everything from BI limit calculation to sensor placement and policy triggers. - Limits: up to $5m per location ($2m in Florida). Up to $10m available subject to underwriter approval. - Blanket limit of $10m available for multi-location submissions - Sectors include: hotels and hospitality, sport and leisure, retail, healthcare and assisted living, real estate, manufacturing, municipality, education. - Policy trigger: pre-agreed depth measured by FloodFlash sensor(s). About FloodFlash FloodFlash is a multi-award-winning insurance technology company at the forefront of the parametric insurance movement. Launched in 2019, their rapid-payout flood product provides coverage to businesses and public bodies that struggle to secure flood terms anywhere else. They use the latest in data modelling and IoT technology to provide fast and flexible cover that pays claims in record times. FloodFlash is a registered coverholder at Lloyd’s of London and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.  

The owners of homes that will almost certainly suffer a total loss within the next 20 to 30 years should prepare to pay insurance premiums on par with a mortgage, according to Farmers Chief Executive Officer Raul Vargas. In certain areas the concentration of risk is huge, Vargas told California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara at the inaugural Global Sustainable Insurance Summit Program on April 10. Premiums should reflect it. And he endorsed shifting additional risk to homeowners, saying it makes coverage more affordable and incentivizes them to install devices and maintain properties to help prevent or reduce a loss. “It is the right thing,” said Vargas. “Radically reduce the risk or take modest exposure because the price allows you to do so,” he said. Farmers Insurance Group is the fifth-largest homeowners multiperil writer in the United States with a 6.2% market share, based on direct premiums, according to BestLink. The CEO said he has been traveling around the country— he noted a recent trip to Minnesota— and believes homeowners are much more willing today to assume more risk in exchange for more palatable premiums. “Insurers like us should be part of that conversation,” said Vargas. They need to be willing to have “the uncomfortable conversations, the ones that are difficult and tough but allow you to be better and learn new ways” to operate and move forward. Vargas spoke in response to queries from Lara about how insurers can meet the moment amidst unprecedented pressures. Lara mentioned his department’s efforts to overhaul “20th century regulation” in effect for “21st century problems.” He noted declining affordability and availability. “People are scared and concerned . . . scared of being dropped,” said Lara, also advocating increased communication.

Vargas threw support behind the use of data to help predict property losses from natural disasters, which is a change Lara has introduced in California, and said policyholders will mitigate risk, given the right incentives. “You need the sophistication of the data today for the right risk for the future,” he said. Insurers who are confident they’re pricing risk accurately regain confidence in a market, he told Lara. Zurich Insurance Group appointed Vargas as CEO of wholly owned subsidiary Farmers Group Inc., and as a member of the Zurich Group executive committee, 18 months ago. He took over early last year, in the midst of what he called a time of great disruption in the industry. ”It’s so important to have clarity about what changes are needed,” said Vargas. He started the list with the need to become “much more agile” and to find more ways to collaborate. “This industry is in the business of time” and can’t afford to waste it waiting to take action, said Vargas. The CEO wants to increase trust with and by regulators, business partners and distributors. And said curiosity is a key component of change. “Don’t think you have all the answers,” he said. “Be humble about trying to learn,” even from competitors, said Vargas.

At the same time, don’t forget to focus on results, he added. Farmers, California’s second-largest homeowners writer, started limiting new business in the state last year, citing “record-breaking” inflation, higher reconstruction costs and the impact of severe weather events. But it’s still open for business in the state, said Vargas, because the CDI is collaborating with stakeholders like Farmers.

Lara said the industry “can’t price ourselves out of this crisis . . .We as regulators need to make sure our markets are strong.” Reduce some friction in the system, suggested Vargas, notably legal abuse, a term he said he prefers over social inflation. Every time a carrier overpays a claim it “affects the entire system,” the CEO said. Underwriting entities of Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. currently have a Best’s Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior) and A (Excellent). The five largest homeowners multiperil writers in California in 2022, based on direct premiums written, were: State Farm Group, with a 20.58% market share; Farmers Insurance Group, 14.46%; CSAA Insurance Group, 6.66%; Liberty Mutual Insurance Cos., 6.43%; and Allstate Insurance Group, 6.36%; according to BestLink.    

Legal pressure is mounting on a property-management software company facing allegations that it illegally fixes apartment rent prices at buildings across the U.S.

State and district attorneys general in Arizona and Washington, D.C., are suing RealPage, and more than a dozen of its landlord customers. North Carolina’s attorney general is also investigating whether the company’s technology breaks antitrust laws.

The Justice Department in November said a civil lawsuit in Tennessee alleging that RealPage illegally fixes rents should go forward. Justice officials have been considering their own civil enforcement action and opened a criminal investigation into the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

The department is investigating whether RealPage is facilitating price-fixing, these people said.

RealPage’s algorithmic pricing system analyzes huge troves of information about the apartment rental market. It then recommends to landlords how much to increase rent for each lease renewal, or what to ask for newly vacated apartments.

At issue is whether the use of this pricing system amounts to an illegal rent-setting cartel among landlords, artificially boosting the rents paid by apartment tenants over many years.

RealPage denies any wrongdoing.

The legal heat on RealPage and apartment building owners is part of a government effort to police business practices it deems anticompetitive and that result in higher prices for consumers.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have brought antitrust charges against tech companies such as Amazon and Google, while pursuing price-fixing cases in more obscure corners of the American economy, such as poultry processing and vehicle exporting.

But President Biden has made rental building owners a particular focus. “We’re cracking down on big landlords who break antitrust laws by price-fixing and driving up rents,” he said last month during his State of the Union address.

In the U.S. Senate, meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) introduced the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act in January.

Any rulings against RealPage could have legal ramifications for other business sectors, such as online retail, where companies also use algorithms to make pricing decisions.

Wider business implications

“The amount that this could impact consumers, you’re looking at billions of dollars potentially,” said Maurice Stucke, a former federal antitrust prosecutor and a law professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes alleges that, in Phoenix and Tucson, RealPage pooled nonpublic pricing data from competing building owners, then fed the data into an algorithm that told landlords to push rents higher than they might have otherwise. RealPage then discouraged landlords from deviating from the algorithm’s suggested rents, according to the attorney general’s filing.

“There is no competitive rental market in Arizona anymore, ” Mayes said in an interview. “Because RealPage sets the price.”

In a statement, a RealPage spokeswoman said its pricing systems were designed to be compliant with federal laws.

Any nonpublic rent data, RealPage said, isn’t tied to any particular firm and plays a secondary role in determining rents. The company said its algorithms sometimes recommend lowering rents.

“A severe shortage of supply in the rental market has led to rising housing costs,” the spokeswoman said, “not the use of revenue management software.”

Texas-based RealPage was founded in 1998. It acquired the YieldStar pricing platform from publicly traded landlord Camden Property Trust in 2002. Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo purchased RealPage in 2021 for nearly $10 billion.

RealPage’s legal troubles began with more than two dozen class-action lawsuits brought by renters from Seattle to New Jersey. Other tenants have since sued a competing software firm, Yardi Systems, making similar allegations, which Yardi also denies. The lawsuits seek monetary damages for renters.

Federal charges could prove disastrous not only for RealPage but also for the many landlords and property managers who use its technology. That includes some of the largest real-estate companies on Wall Street.

Publicly traded apartment owners, such as Equity Residential and UDR, are among the companies named in the complaint brought by the Washington, D.C., attorney general. Equity, UDR and other landlords have denied participating in a rent-setting cartel.

It is unclear which landlords the Justice Department might be targeting in its investigation. RealPage said its software is used to price about 4.5 million rental apartments nationwide.

Landlords pulling the plug?

RealPage’s assurances that its technology complies with federal laws might not ease the fears of property owners open to litigation. Some apartment developers are now weighing the new risks of using the technology at recently constructed buildings, said Parker Miller, an antitrust attorney representing corporate clients at the Alston & Bird law firm.

“We are certainly advising clients to be prepared for a world without RealPage-style revenue management,” he said.

In a class-action lawsuit brought by tenants in Tennessee, three real-estate companies recently made preliminary settlement agreements, though the terms aren’t yet public. Another large property firm, publicly traded AvalonBay Communities, was dropped from the lawsuit because its contract with RealPage had prohibited the use of nonpublic pricing data. In Colorado, a state bill would ban landlords from using certain algorithmic pricing systems to set rents. Drew Hamrick, general counsel for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, a landlord group, says he could see a compromise in which software companies would make the same information they use to set rents available to prospective tenants.

“You’ve got a situation where the housing provider has more sophisticated information about real-time pricing than does the consumer,” Hamrick said. “Disproportionate information is not good for a free market.”

       

A $225 million lawsuit has been filed against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company over damage caused during the 2021 Dixie Fire. The wildfire was the second-largest in the history of California, burning 963,309 acres, or more than 1,505 square miles, in several counties after igniting July 13 north of Cresta Dam. Shortly after the fire ignited, PG&E reported to the CPUC that its equipment might have been involved in starting the fire. In 2022, Cal Fire confirmed that the fire started after a tree hit PG&E equipment. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday and listed seven different business entities and trusts as plaintiffs that owned property in Plumas and Tehama counties when the Dixie Fire burned. Here are the names of the plaintiffs listed:

• Collins Pine Company (CPC); based in Oregon
• CC&H Lands, LLC; based in Oregon
• CCT Lands, LLC; based in Delaware
• Rock Creek Lands, LLC; based in Delaware
• E.S. Collins California Trust; administered under Oregon laws
• TWC Corporation; based in Oregon and owned by CPC
• Wespath Forests LLC, based in Illinois

All of them own portions of the Collins Almanor Forest, and are seeking payment from PG&E for damages to property, timber and mill businesses caused by the fire. “The day before the fire, these trees were part of a thriving, sustainably-managed commercial forest; the day after the fire, those trees were virtually worthless – amounting to only what could be salvaged of the burned logs,” said Edward Duckers, a counsel for the plaintiffs affiliated with Stoel Rives LLP. “Further, the unique environmental value of this forest is permanently lost and can never be replaced, all due to PG&E’s negligence.” The complaint filed against PG&E accuses the company of negligence, public nuisance, private nuisance, trespassing and failure to comply with the Public Utilities Act. It also alleges PG&E should have been aware of fire risk hazards caused by its operations due to the company's involvement in previous wildfires in Northern California prior to the Dixie Fire. The plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial regarding seven causes of action.    

North Carolina carriers want to hike average mobile home fire rates 82.9% and mobile home casualty rates 49.9% over three years, according to the North Carolina Department of Insurance. If approved, the first rate increases would take effect on Nov. 1. The independent North Carolina Rate Bureau, which represents insurers, seeks a 24.9% mobile home fire and a 15.9% mobile home casualty average rate hike for 2024. The bureau wants 21.2% then 20.9% average rate increases for mobile home fire for the next two years and 13.9% then 13.5% hikes for mobile home casualty, all to take effect on a Nov. 1. The department is taking comment through April 30 on the request. Unlike standard homeowners policies, both mobile home programs cover flood losses. Of the two mobile homes programs, fire covers a broader range of perils. “‘We are in the process of reviewing the filing, according to state law," Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said,

His department said the requested increases could affect about 148,000 policyholders. This year Causey came out as a hard "no" on a property insurers' request for an average statewide homeowners insurance rate hike of 42.2%, saying he hadn’t seen evidence justifying it. That proposal drew more than 24,000 emailed and hundreds of mailed comments and significant opposition at a public comment forum. His decision set the process for an administrative hearing on the homeowners request in motion, targeting Oct. 7. It will be held unless the DOI and the bureau are able to negotiate a settlement, which would save litigation expenses. The top five writers of homeowners multiperil insurance in 2022 in North Carolina, based on direct premiums written, were: State Farm Group, with 16.09% market share; North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance Group, 12.27%; USAA Group, 9.7%; Nationwide Property & Casualty Group, 7.52%; and Allstate Insurance Group, 6.49%, according to BestLink.  

USAA is reportedly cutting over 200 positions as part of continued restructuring. This comes after the insurer, one of San Antonio's largest employers, laid off nearly 1000 people in 2023 after reporting nearly 1.3 billion dollars in losses over 2022. “USAA continues to make necessary adjustments to run a healthy business and provide members with exceptional service and competitive prices,” said Rodger Wildermuth, Director of Public Relations for USAA. “After careful consideration, we made the difficult decision to eliminate approximately 220 roles.” Despite these firings, USAA has emphasized its commitment to changing to meet the needs of consumers, highlighting that they have hired thousands of positions in the past year. “USAA continues to hire, including approximately 2,900 jobs filled so far this year, but this reprioritization is necessary due to changing business needs,” said Wildermuth. “Employees are treated with care and compassion and provided with assistance to find new roles inside and outside of the organization.” USAA has not clarified which departments, if any, are specifically affected. How many of these positions were local or national has also not been verified.    

A new form of sticker shock has hit American car buyers like Darin Davis. In January, when the 56-year-old Dallas real estate agent renewed the insurance on the pearly-white 2024 Cadillac XT4 that he bought just a few months earlier, the rate nearly doubled. "It takes the fun out of owning a new car when you’re paying so much money," said Davis, adding that if he’d known such a massive increase was coming, he might have opted for a less expensive model. But by then it was too late. In one of the cruel twists of an inflation-weary U.S. economy, car prices are coming down after surging by record amounts during the COVID-19 pandemic. But at least part of those gains for consumers are getting gobbled up by rising auto insurance rates that for some models now account for more than a quarter of the total cost of owning a vehicle. Car prices have eased as the supply chain snarls of the pandemic--especially shortages of vital computer chips--have untangled and automakers boost inventories on their lots. Meanwhile, factors including rising costs associated with repairing increasingly complicated vehicles and more storm damage amid climate change is pushing insurance rates higher. And car buyers aren't the only ones with an axe to grind over insurance inflation. For Federal Reserve policymakers working to lower inflation overall, it's an example of the unwelcome surprises that have conspired to slow their progress.

HURTING AFFORDABILITY

The Consumer Price Index rose 3.5% last month from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. But auto insurance costs were up 22.2% over the same period, the biggest increase since the 1970s. Car prices, meanwhile, continued to moderate. New vehicle prices declined 0.1%, compared to a year earlier, while used prices slipped 2.2%. Car dealers are offering more incentives to buyers, which helps bring down up-front costs. The degree to which insurance rates are weighing on buying decisions is unclear, but there are signs it’s become a bigger factor, especially for consumers on tight budgets. "We’re hearing from a number of shoppers that they’re declining to buy a car - or returning one - because they can afford the car, but not the insurance for it," said Sean Tucker, a senior editor at Kelley Blue Book, a car valuation and research company in Irvine, California. Tucker said Kelley Blue Book recently added insurance guidance to its list of buying tips, urging shoppers to get an insurance quote before they put down any money. Car insurance rates vary widely across the country and are influenced by everything from the cost local collision repair shops charge to the potential for damage from tropical storms and wildfires. According to the insurance shopping site Insurify, the average cost in the U.S. for full auto coverage rose 24% last year and now stands at just over $182 a month. The company said 63% of drivers it surveyed saw rates increase in 2023 and predicts rates will rise another 7% in 2024. But that figure could rise. "We’re seeing a lot of activity in (the first quarter) that indicate to us it may increase even more," said Jessica Edmondson, a data specialist at Insurify.

TOTAL COST

Insurance seems poised to continue to grow as a share of the so-called total cost of owning of a vehicle, which factors in things like routine maintenance, taxes, depreciation, and fuel, as well as insurance. According to Kelley Blue Book, insurance accounted for an average 16% of this gauge for a compact car in 2019 and will grow to 26% in 2024. For a compact SUV, it was 13% in 2019, but will be 20% this year. Multiple forces have combined to fuel the current surge in rates. More cars are being totaled than in the past and quality issues mounted during the production disruptions caused by the pandemic that can lead to insurance claims. A shortage of mechanics has meant it takes longer to fix a car, which in turn drives up the cost to insurance companies that provide rental cars to policyholders waiting for those repairs. A typical car is also increasingly laden with electronics that can make them costlier and more difficult to repair. "A bumper is just a bumper - but a bumper full of sensors costs more to repair," said Kristin Dziczek, a policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago who is an expert in automotive industry trends. She noted that electric cars, on average, cost 30% more and can take longer to repair. There are also changes in how carmakers are producing cars that carry insurance implications. For instance, Tesla has pioneered a process called gigacasting, which involves casting a single part that can replace 30 or more separate pieces of metal in a traditional vehicle. That reduces production costs but can make it costlier to repair a vehicle involved in an accident. Other carmakers are following suit. Cadillac makes one model now that uses 16 gigacastings. Meanwhile, Davis--the Dallas real estate agent who bought a new Cadillac--said he eventually found a cheaper option by bundling his car and homeowners insurance and increasing the deductible.    

Flooding and severe convective storm (SCS) activity across the central and southern US between April 6th and 11th caused some notable property damage, with total economic and insured losses potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars or higher, according to insurance and reinsurance broker Aon. In 2023, insured losses from natural catastrophe events once again exceeded $100 billion, as SCS activity reached new heights and in the US alone, drove insured losses of more than $50 billion. So far in 2024, SCS activity in the US has persisted, and the latest weekly catastrophe report from broking group Aon discusses the impacts of two slow-moving weather systems which brought significant impacts to parts of the US over April 6th-11th. The April 6th-7th event brought widespread wind gusts exceeding 75 mph mainly in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, with some locations along the Rocky Mountain front range experiencing gusts up to 96 mph, according to Aon. As well as extreme rainfall and substantial flooding damage, the April 8th-11th event also brought strong winds and tornadoes which ripped roofs off of a number of homes, downed power lines and trees, and caused widespread power outages. The most extensive damage from the two low-pressure systems was due to extreme rainfall, primarily in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and flooding. Additionally, hurricane-force wind gusts across Colorado drove 150,000 power outages, widespread downed trees, and notable property damage mainly within the Denver metro area. “While the latest weather system is still moving through the eastern U.S., the remarkable damage already seen across the central and southern U.S. may drive economic and insured losses into the hundreds of millions USD. This loss estimate may increase further as loss adjustments and many damage assessments are still pending,” says Aon.    

The economic drivers of the U.S. property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry are now growing faster than the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and are expected to gain further momentum in the event of Federal Reserve monetary rate cuts, according to the Insurance Information Institute’s (Triple-I) latest Insurance Economics Outlook. “We’ve been forecasting that P/C underwriting growth would catch up on overall GDP and it has,” said Michel Léonard, Ph.D., CBE, chief economist and data scientist, Triple-I, in the organization’s April 2024 Outlook. “Triple-I forecasts P&C underlying growth to increase to 3.4% in 2024, 1.2% above the Fed’s GDP forecast of 2.2%. It will likely take at least another year for this economic rising tide to lift the P/C industry’s overall growth and performance.” “Triple-I expects P&C underlying growth to continue outperforming overall GDP growth into 2025 and 2026.” Léonard said. Using the Fed’s GDP forecast as a basis for comparison, underlying insurance growth is expected to outperform overall U.S. growth by an average of 2.0% over the next three years, the report explains. “Different economic stress scenarios may reduce or widen the spread between P&C underlying growth and overall GDP growth, or even reverse the overall trend of P&C underlying growth outperforming overall GDP growth,” said Léonard. “The top two risks to underlying insurance growth and overall GDP growth is the Fed slowing or reversing course on monetary easing and renewed geopolitical risk including global supply chain disruptions.” The Triple-I has been, and remains, more optimistic about growth than the Fed because its models put less emphasis than the Fed’s on the negative impact of each additional interest rate increase on GDP growth and the unemployment rate, the report noted. For 2024, Triple-I’s forecast for overall GDP growth is 2.6%, compared to the Fed’s 2.2%. Léonard said that a decision by the Fed to cut interest rates this year, “would provide further tailwind to key insurance underwriting growth such as housing and auto sales.”        

The number of publicly reported data compromise events jumped 90% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, with the number of organizations falling victim to supply chain attacks nearly tripling, according to recent data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). While the number of data compromises increased from 442 to 841, the number of affected individuals dropped 72% to just under 28.6 million in Q1 compared to one year earlier, the ITRC found. This seems to reflect more refined techniques by cybercriminals, according to the report. “The consensus among cybersecurity experts and the ITRC is that the number of victims per compromise is drifting lower as identity criminals launch more targeted assaults that are vastly different from the ‘pray & spray’ attacks of the late 20-teens,” said the ITRC. “However, more breaches with fewer people impacted does not mean individuals or businesses can reduce their level of diligence.” The first quarter of the year historically features the lowest number of data compromises, according to ITRC, suggesting breach stats will only rise through the year. Last year’s data compromise events hit a new record of 3,203 events with 416,205,332 victims. The financial services sector had the highest number of data breach events in Q1, up dramatically to 224 from 70 one year earlier. Attacks on professional services firms also more than doubled to 100. ITRC broke the 841 data compromises down by type – 642 cyberattacks, 85 events caused by system or human errors, and 11 physical attacks (these include compromise of actual physical items like lost or stolen devices). While cyberattacks remain the primary cause of compromised data, the percentage of data breach notices without information about the root cause of the event jumped from 44% to 68% of all cyberattack-related notices. ITRC observed that new reporting requirements from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appear to be encouraging more information sharing on cyber events. However, just 75 of 841 entities experiencing cyber events in Q1 were subject to the new rules.

Insurer Progressive Corp reported a better-than expected first-quarter profit on Friday, helped by strong demand for its personal and property insurance policies, sending its shares up 2% in early trading. Strong job market and rising wages are fueling renewed spending on auto insurance, one of Progressive's core business. It had 26.5 million personal insurance policies in force, 7% higher than last year. Property business and commercial lines policies were also 10% and 3% higher than last year, respectively. Excluding one-off items, the Mayfield Village, Ohio-based company earned $3.75 a share, trouncing analysts' average estimates of $3.24 a share, according to LSEG data. Shares of Progressive have advanced 30% so far this year, outperforming peers like Allstate and Travelers which rose 20% and 17%, respectively. Progressive earned $16.15 billion in net premiums, 19% higher than last year. Combined ratio was 86.1%, versus 99% last year. A ratio below 100% means the insurer earned more in premiums than it paid out in claims