With all the volatility and uncertainty going on right now, CFOs might feel badly in need of a win somewhere. They may be surprised to find that small victory when they renew their organizations’ property insurance policies.

After several years of what’s known in the insurance industry as a “hard” market—think all the bad stuff, like higher premiums, more restrictive coverage terms, shrinking coverage availability—things have finally turned in the insurance buyer’s favor. That’s right: Rates are finally coming down for many, by as much as double-digit percentages.

Prudent buyers can take advantage of this by shopping around, insurance brokers told CFO Brew.

How we got here: The tables finally turned in the commercial property insurance market thanks to a number of factors: A softer reinsurance (insurance for insurers) market, increased insurer profitability, and more market competition all played a role, the brokers said.

“Anytime you have profitability, it’s going to open up doors for [insurers] to want to write more of that business, because they all have their goals,” Ron Guerena, SVP of property and casualty at Woodruff Sawyer, told us.

In its 2025 midyear report, HUB International estimated rate changes on commercial property policies ranged from 15% decreases to 5% increases, based on factors like whether a policy had multiple insurers or a single one, organizations’ risk profile, and geographic exposures to risks like wildfires or flooding. “The property market has quickly reversed course from needed rate increases over the past several years,” the insurance broker noted in the report.

Organizations with shared and layered programs—meaning more than one company is insuring their property risks—are seeing greater rate reductions than those with just a single insurer, according to Blake Giannisis, North American property practice leader at HUB.

Strategies for getting the best rate. Since insurance may be cheaper for the first time in a long time, now’s the time for organizations to get more out of their policies, Giannisis told us.

“We’ve got a lot of clients and prospects…that have said they’ve had to give up coverages that they really still feel they need, or they’ve taken on higher retentions just as a function of cost and tolerance,” he said.

Now that rates are down, Giannisis said he’s advising organizations to “reinvest some of that premium into the insurance part of the business, rather than just take it all as savings.” That could be through decreasing deductibles or buying additional limits.

It’s important that organizations not start slacking on their presentation as an attractive risk, Guerena noted. Insurance companies still want to see that buyers have a healthy capex budget along with detailed mitigation and response plans for their properties.

“A client that knows their risk well often does well with insurers,” he said.

Giannisis cautioned that not all organizations should automatically shop around for better rates. “If there’s a long standing relationship [between insured and insurer], there’s a lot to be said for that,” he said.

But who will think about the insurers? The competitive environment was apparent in insurance companies’ earnings results.

Travelers lost some large accounts to competition because of “terms and pricing that we weren’t willing to accept,” Greg Toczydlowski, its president of business insurance, said during an earnings call last month. Travelers wrote $885 million in premiums—a measure of how much business it brought in—in its “national property and other” market in Q2, a 3% YoY decrease, according to an earnings release.

Similarly, Chubb has backed away from opportunities where it felt others were being a little too aggressive on pricing, according to CEO Evan Greenberg. Competition is particularly stiff for larger accounts. Greenberg noted that Chubb has fared better with smaller and midsize organizations.

“A lot more capital is chasing the property business and prices are softening, while terms and conditions remain steady,” Greenberg told investors in late July. “We are, of course, disciplined and we’re not going to write business below an adequate price. While others are leaning in, we’ve begun walking away where necessary.”