Zurich North America no longer will offer property and casualty insurance to independent dealerships and some franchise dealerships, a spokeswoman told Automotive News on Friday.
Blame hail.
"We are reshaping our auto dealer P&C portfolio to proactively address persistent underperformance due to the continued volatility associated with large and catastrophic hail losses, combined with overall profitability results," she said.
Zurich will continue to offer property and casualty insurance to "mega dealer" customers nationwide and to many of its franchise dealership clients.
It also will continue to offer finance and insurance products to dealerships nationwide.
Indeed, the company plans to substantially grow its F&I business in 2018, the spokeswoman said.
"This move in no way diminishes Zurich's commitment to providing products and services to the P&C automotive industry as well as the F&I marketplace," the spokeswoman said. "In fact, Zurich remains one of the largest insurance and vehicle service contract providers for U.S. franchise auto dealers."
