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Several factors combine to make commercial auto insurance a bellwether for the insurance market as a whole, enabling it to predict trends well in advance, according to the results of a study released Wednesday by Conning Resarch and Consulting.

Clint Harris, an analyst at Conning, said in a statement that “principal commercial automobile industry segments, such as construction and trucking, are leading economic indicators for the general economy. As commercial auto liability losses generally develop more rapidly than other commercial liability coverages, this line of business is often a harbinger predictor of things to come for other commercial insurance lines.”

Fuller results of the study, according to insurance news website Property-Casualty.com, seem to show that the past seven years have been generally profitable for the commercial auto sector. This is in contrast to the previous three decades, the website says, during which commercial auto insurance was only profitable for issuers for four out of 30 years.

The market sector, Conning reports, has been dominated recently by large companies selling commercial auto as one of many types of insurance, as well as smaller so-called “multi-specialist” companies. The latter type of firm, according to Conning, has advantages in underwriting expertise, as well as a better understanding of market conditions and how they affect their clientele.

Conning’s study incorporated looks at a number of the largest sub-sectors in the commercial auto insurance industry, the company said, including dealers, livery companies, trucking, and construction. The livery and trucking sectors were the only ones that tended to remain in the hands of more specialized companies into the latter part of the decade, according to Property-Casualty.com.