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23rd September 2018

Newslink Global Insurance Trends-The Week

It has been a busy week, starting with Marsh McLennan's move for JLT, and ending with Lloyd's announcing aggregated market profit of £0.6bn for the first six months of 2018(June 2017: £1.2bn). The decrease on the prior half year was driven by a comparatively low investment return of £0.2bn(£1.0bn) but the combined ratio improved. Standard & Poor's reported on the Monte Rendez-Vous. An Accenture survey indicated financial services firms are closing the gap on cyber attacks, having stopped four in five of all breach attempts last year, whilst Willis Re's annual Silent Cyber Risk Outlook global survey said insurers are expecting increased cyber-related losses across all business lines over the next 12 months. Conning published its US Life-Annuity Consumer Markets Annual, and John Hancock introduced Vitality–a behaviour change platform that rewards customers for the everyday steps they take to live longer, healthier lives-for all life insurance policies.
We published our Newslink follow-up interview with the Chartered Insurance Institute(CII) chief executive Sian Fisher-the CII moved its Head Office closer to the London Market and trade associations on Monday. It also announced it had reduced its gender pay gap, and the Association of British Insurers(ABI) commissioned a new report-"Tackling the gender seniority gap: what works for the insurance and long-term savings industry". The Prudential Regulatory Authority(PRA) issued a consultation paper related to the extension of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime(SM&CR) to insurers, the Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) closed its remaining investigations into the UK life insurance sector without taking enforcement action, and Insurance Europe responded to the EC proposal for a review of the 2009 Motor Insurance Directive(MID).
The latest Willis Towers Watson report said 71 InsurTech funding transactions in the second quarter was a record but the $579m invested was down 20%. Lloyd's Market Association(LMA) launched a new report-"InsurTech-led change in the Lloyd’s Market" and it is well worth a read. Separately, over twenty insurance sector start-ups are also set to unveil their intention to form an alliance known as Insurtech UK, whose immediate aim is to generate and gauge interest from prospective sponsors to allow the concept to graduate into a fully fledged association with detailed plans and a five-year mandate. AIR Worldwide estimated industry insured losses resulting from Hurricane Florence’s winds and storm surge will range from $1.7bn to $4.6bn-excluding impact of ongoing unprecedented flooding, and RMS and Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies(CCRS) announced the release of a new Data Definitions Document v1.0 for 14 different classes of insurance exposure which covers an estimated $554tr of total insured limits globally. Willis Towers Watson introduce today Property Quantified, a first-of-its-kind technology platform to help organisations analyze potential property losses across a global portfolio with the aim of optimizing risk transfer and insurance strategies. Canadian insurer Co-operators have developed a new digital insurance product in two months through the Slice Labs Insurance Cloud Service.
A new suite of policy documentation was published to support the underwriting of risks from the European Economic Area by Lloyd’s Brussels. AXA IM is moving to the next phase of its commitment to strengthen Responsible Investment(RI) capabilities, AFL acquired a majority stake in New Jersey-based MGA Zodiac Insurance Services, and Thomas Miller is to take over the Managing General Agency and Insurance Services operations of specialist insurance services group Zeller Associates. Randall and Quilter had a strong first half, and there were senior appointments at Chubb amd Tokio Marine Kiln(TMK).
Full articles on the above topics are included in those added this week to the Newslink Global Trends Database Resource at www.onlystrategic.com