Reinsurance News

Swiss Re, the Zurich headquartered global reinsurance firm, has fallen to a group net loss of -$225 million for the first-quarter of 2020, after taking a pre-tax charge of $476 million for its property and casualty businesses due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The impacts faced by insurance and reinsurance markets from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has some parallels with the 2001 World Trade Center bombing, with challenges expected to be faced and the possibility of adverse reserve development further down the line, executives at Fidelis have said.

Speaking at the reinsurance giants annual general meeting this morning, Munich Re CEO Joachim Wenning noted that while the ultimate cost of the Covid-19 pandemic would be “substantial” he expects that for the reinsurer this will be manageable and the company may benefit from opportunities as well.

Cincinnati Financial Corporation’s CEO Steven Johnston said the company’s property catastrophe reinsurance panel will be expected to “follow our fortunes” on any Covid-19 pandemic related losses that fall under that program’s coverage for the re/insurer.

Global reinsurance company SCOR said that its property and casualty underwriting business SCOR Global P&C is not materially exposed to the Covid-19 pandemic, but that the company is monitoring developments around business interruption closely.

Hiscox Group, the specialist insurance or reinsurance underwriter and ILS capital manager, has forecasted rate hardening for the U.S. wholesale insurance and reinsurance markets due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Markel Corporation reported its first-quarter 2020 results yesterday and in its report the company warned of the potential hit to its insurance-linked securities (ILS) operations from the Covid-19 pandemic, which is perhaps partly evidenced in a -4% decline in assets under management at Markel’s flagship ILS fund manager Nephila Capital.

Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd., the insurance-linked securities (ILS), reinsurance- and transportation- focused investment manager, is making a $20 million equity investment in specialist non-life insurance and reinsurance legacy investor and program manager Randall & Quilter (R&Q) Investment Holdings.

Head of PCS, Tom Johansmeyer, tells Artemis that there’s a real sense across the marketplace that certain large, complex insurance towers are going to be affected by silent pandemic risk.

Velocity Risk Underwriters LLC, the managing general agency (MGA) operation of reinsurance, catastrophe, climate and weather risk-linked investment manager Nephila Capital, is to expand its direct sourcing of homeowners business in the core wind-exposed coastal insurance markets of Florida and Texas.