Intelligent Insurer News

The demerger of Insurance giant Prudential has taken effect this morning, with the UK and European parts of the business spun off into a separate company called M&G, which also includes the M&G fund management company that Prudential acquired in 1999.

Broker Aon has unveiled a new division within its US operation designed to enhance the value it brings to its regional insurer clients.

Almost all lines of business are seeing rate increases as well as greater underwriting discipline something that reinsurers have not seen for many years.

The protection gap in the US remains a key issue for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA); as such, it is focused on certain risks that are traditionally underinsured, such as flood, as well as securing the best outcomes for structures that help manage certain risks including the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).

Delegates attending the APCIA conference have their eyes on the horizon, according to a survey carried out for APCIA Today.

A shift has taken place in recent years to a new terrorism paradigm of lower severity but higher frequency modus operandi. Specifically, as security forces have tightened around the formation of groups and their ability to construct improvised explosive devices (IEDs), marauding attacks have become more common, using weapons including vehicles, bladed instrument and guns.

Small, transactional, commercial lines business in the US will increasingly adopt a direct-to-insurer business model, cutting brokers out of the loop, in the same way personal lines business has evolved.

Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, which is owned by a charity, Allchurches Trust, has seen stable underwriting performance and strong investment returns so far this year.

Research by QBE Business Insurance empirically proves the world is getting more unpredictable. The QBE Unpredictability Index finds that the world has become more unpredictable over the last 30 years, with economic and business factors the principal drivers of uncertainty over the last decade. 

Alternative capacity and its effect on the market is expected to dominate conversations at this year’s Baden-Baden Reinsurance Meeting, according to an Intelligent Insurer reader survey ahead of the event. 

Most lines of business in Munich Re Syndicate’s portfolio are seeing rates increase and, in some cases, a quite significant increase, according to Dominick Hoare, the syndicate’s group chief underwriting officer.

The main challenges in the re/insurance market are modernisation and the associated costs, according to Damian Cleary, partner and head of London Market at BLM.

Credit fundamentals will continue to reflect intense pricing competition and low investment yields, limiting profitability in the reinsurance sector. 

Personal lines and health issues offer future insurance growth opportunities in the Romanian market, according to Renato Szilagyi, vice chairman of City Insurance, which is based in the country.

Changes to the rate used in the UK to calculate how much insurers should pay out in compensation to people who have suffered life-changing injuries will continue to have an impact on rates in the upcoming renewal, Simon Wigzell, underwriting manager of UnipolRe, told Baden-Baden Today.

Arch Mortgage Insurance Company (Arch MI) has obtained $577 million of indemnity reinsurance on a pool representing $7.2 billion of mortgages from Bellemeade Re 2019-4, a special purpose reinsurer. The reinsurance is for a portfolio of MI policies linked to 113,180 loans issued by Arch MI and affiliates in 2019.

Is the re/insurance sector ready for Industry 4.0? Marcus Schmalbach, Ryskex, asked the question and provided some answers for Baden-Baden Today.

With India providing the bedrock for its operations in the region, GIC Re sees the wider Asia-Pacific region as the growth engine for both the world economy and its own aims, Devesh Srivastava of GIC Re told APCIA Today.

Reinsurers may think they know what the perfect client looks like but they might not always be correct. Stuart Shipperlee, managing director of Litmus Analysis, explains the perspective offered by the results of the consultancy’s analysis of North American cedants.

The insurance industry needs to keep a close eye on the horizon for future threats that might be “the next asbestos”, according to risk analysis company Praedicat.