insurance

While softer property catastrophe reinsurance pricing can allow P&C insurers to improve their earnings and strengthen their protection it is the management response that matters, rating agency KBRA has said. As those that use favourable pricing to accelerate growth may realise substantially less credit benefit when catastrophes occur or the market turns again.

A busy August in catastrophe loss terms from severe weather activity has resulted in large US insurer Allstate reporting $748 million in pre-tax losses, which has lifted the total across the current annual aggregate risk period for its catastrophe bonds to $3.15 billion so far.

Under certain scenarios, a category 5 hurricane ploughing into Miami or Tampa Bay has the potential to drive more than US $300 billion of losses across the global insurance and reinsurance market, Swiss Re’s Institute said today, while also explaining the importance of reinsurance and ILS capital in protecting the state.

The global data centre build-out is creating unprecedented risk concentrations in natural disaster zones, and pushing traditional insurance capacity to its limits. Howden sees this as a prime opportunity for the capital markets, as catastrophe peak risk remains the foundations of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class.

Karen Clark & Company (KCC), the catastrophe risk modelling specialist, has launched RiskInsight® 4.16, the latest version of its RiskInsight open loss modeling platform, which introduces advanced performance, automation, and scalability enhancements for insurers, reinsurers, and insurance-linked securities (ILS) managers.

CatIQ, Canada’s insured loss and exposure index provider, has raised its insurance industry loss estimate from the severe storm outbreak that affected Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the Canadian Prairies in early June to CAD $923 million, an 8.5% increase from its second loss estimate of CAD $850 million that was issued in July.

In this insurance-linked securities market environment where engagement from investors remains strong, Chris Parry, the Global Head of RenaissanceRe Capital Partners told us that a disciplined approach matters more than growth and right-sizing capital is key at this stage of the reinsurance cycle.

The connectivity between risks in an increasingly complex world means their consequences can be amplified. As the insurance and reinsurance industry work to understand emerging risks, there’s a need to build the conviction and confidence of all stakeholders including capital providers, so risks can be effectively transferred, according to Moody’s CEO Rob Fauber.

The critical importance of underwriting discipline in reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) is laid bare in new analysis from PwC, with the company suggesting that remaining strict on terms, conditions and structures could be worth up to seven points of return on capital.

Broking giant Aon has today urged its insurer clients to leverage the record levels of reinsurance and third-party or insurance-linked securities capital as a growth-driver, saying creative use of capital and access to all its forms is increasingly important.