Homeowners’ insurance rates rose 2.9 percent on average in Connecticut last year, with a half-dozen underwriters entering the market last year, including the AmGuard subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway; Lemonade, a New York City insurer focused on city properties; and the Berkley Insurance Co. unit of Greenwich-based W.R. Berkley.

“It’s pretty clear that in many lines of business, loss costs are moving up,” said W.R. Berkley CEO Rob Berkley in an October review of his firm’s third-quarter results. “Workers’ comp may be one of the few … where we’re seeing certain components of the loss cost – particularly the (claims) frequency trends – being negative.”

Auto insurers also tapped the brakes on rate increases last year in Connecticut, though drivers still paid an extra 3.4 percent on average from 2017 to cover higher liability reserves factored into their premiums by carriers.

That was a smaller hike than the overall 4.1 percent increase that drivers absorbed from 2016, according to the Connecticut Insurance Department’s annual study of property and casualty insurance rates.

Auto insurers underwrote $2.9 billion in private passenger coverage in Connecticut last year, with Geico and parent Berkshire Hathaway the market leader with $340 million in written premiums, and Liberty Mutual the No. 2 carrier ahead of Progressive, Allstate and State Farm.