Nearly all of the top 20 U.S. homeowners insurers posted year-over-year premium growth in the second quarter, while their loss ratios stayed below 100%, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

The nine largest homeowners insurers by premiums written remain unchanged from the prior-year quarter, with State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. at the top of the ranking with $5.38 billion of direct premiums written. Allstate Corp. and United Services Automobile Association hold the second and third spots with $2.39 billion and $2.05 billion of premiums, respectively. The top three's loss ratios were 85.02%, 68.76% and 85.52%, respectively.

Allstate's president of personal property-liability, Glenn Shapiro, said the underlying loss ratio on homeowners insurance improved because of increased premiums and lower noncatastrophe losses.

"What I would say recently, and this is probably an underreported part of the COVID impact, is that we've seen a shift in frequency severity on the home side because ... we're seeing fewer like death claims and break-ins because everybody's home," he said during the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Allstate CEO Thomas Wilson does not think insurers ought to try to grow in homeowners if they are taking huge losses. He said that when a company gets a customer for a price that is "not appropriate," it must then either lose them or manage them to higher rates.

Progressive Corp. recorded premium growth of 13.3% and climbed two rungs to the No. 10 spot with $502.2 million in premiums, although its loss ratio came in at 100.1% in the quarter. The auto-focused insurer said in its Form 10-Q for the second quarter that it experienced significant wind, hail and tornado losses from the 20 industry catastrophe events declared during the period and recognized unfavorable development from first-quarter storms.

CEO Susan Griffith said on a conference call that profit needs to be a "big part of what we're thinking about in terms of property," after she was asked about correcting pricing for non-catastrophe weather on the homeowner side.

Piper Sandler analyst Paul Newsome wrote in a research note to clients that the third quarter appears to be a high catastrophe loss quarter with no one event driving the losses, but instead a high frequency of catastrophe loss events. He pointed to numerous hurricanes, the Plains and Midwest derecho, wildfires and the continued impact from COVID-19, among other catastrophe events.