D&O capacity is hardly scarce in the US market. After several years of aggressive competition and falling prices, brokers can still find plenty of insurers willing to deploy limits.
But as the market begins to stabilize, at least one specialty executive is urging brokers to scrutinize the composition of their towers.
David Haas (pictured), president of global specialty at CNA, said management liability remains an area with significant market capacity, including for private and not-for-profit organizations. IPO activity has also created demand for limits this year.
“We’re putting a high level of value on the quality of a tower,” Haas told Insurance Business. “There’s a lot of capacity in the D&O space, but it’s not all quality capacity.”
Haas’ distinction is becoming more important as the D&O cycle shows early signs of turning.
Marsh reported US D&O rates increased 1% in the second quarter of 2026 after declining 3% in the first quarter. Aon’s public-company D&O index similarly found average primary pricing for policies renewing with the same limit and deductible rose 0.6% year over year, the first increase after 16 consecutive quarters without one.
The shift puts more weight on the decisions brokers make when assembling layered programs. In a soft or competitive market, price can make newer or more aggressive capacity attractive, particularly on excess layers. Haas said CNA looks beyond the amount of limit available and considers the carriers sitting alongside it on a program.
“We’re underwriting to the towers that brokers are putting together,” he said. “When we look down, we want to see peer markets that have invested in things such as claims, like handling their own claims versus sending them off to a third party.
“We want to see quality paper. We want to see longevity in the space, not a market that just enters and has been in for one or two years and is top-line focused.”
His concerns also come as placement conditions become more nuanced. Marsh said high excess layers remained challenging to place in the second quarter, with some insurers declining to participate in top ABC layers and larger towers sometimes requiring brokers to approach additional markets. At the same time, insurer interest in Side A remained healthy, with some carriers willing to move lower in programs.
The result is a market where headline capacity can obscure differences in appetite, structure and claims capability. Building a tower can involve balancing an insured’s pressure for competitive pricing against questions over whether carriers have the infrastructure and balance-sheet commitment to respond when a complex claim develops.
Haas said discipline around line size and pricing also matters when judging the quality of participating markets.
“We want to see very good discipline in terms of the level of capacity that’s deployed, rate online, et cetera. While I think that market offers a rising tide from the rate space, markets have to intelligently underwrite to their peers when they’re in it.”
Management liability has been moving away from the broad softening of the past two years, according to Haas. CNA has seen a shift from pricing that had been “flattish to down two points” toward increases of roughly 1% to 4%, although individual outcomes vary by risk.
He also cautioned against treating management liability as one uniform opportunity. Public-company books with concentrations in life sciences or technology can present different challenges from private-company risks, while larger organizations demand deeper underwriting and claims expertise. "It needs claims infrastructure. It requires intelligent, tower-based underwriting," he said.
