Three Pulls Out of Market

On Friday September 5, 2025 Three by Berkshire Hathaway announced to appointed agents that they changing their Bar & Restaurant insurance appetite. 

The email which states that Three will remain closed to establishments classified as “bars” and will further restrict appetite for restaurants to those with >20% sales from alcohol. They also notified agents that they will be broadly “non-renewing” policy holders specifically in the state of South Carolina until they can price “appropriately.”

What does this mean for the markets in South Carolina? It means that an already tight insurance market will continue to get tighter even as legislation is slated to take effect starting January 1, 2026. While Berkshire did not give a specific reason for the move, we believe this may be due to the policy structure as it relates to that upcoming legislation change. 

Three has a standard policy structure of $3 million in aggregate coverage with $1 million in per occurrence coverage. This policy structure may end up being no longer valid in South Carolina. The amended law requires that insurance carriers have a per occurrence minimum of 50% of the aggregate limit. Under the current Three policy structure that would mean an INCREASE in per occurrence coverage to at least $1.5 million dollars. 

We can only speculate that this was the cause for the change in appetite as South Carolina specifically was the only state that will be getting broad non-renewals.