Chief Financial Officers (CFO) speaking at a panel during PwC’s Insurance Summit in Bermuda event agreed that the growth outlook for the reinsurance industry is positive, although they suggested that a number of challenges must also be overcome.
Panellists including Jeffrey Sangster, former CFO at Validus Holdings; Mario Bonaccorso, CFO at PartnerRe; and Stephen Robb, CFO at AXA XL said that the industry must be more innovative and aggressive in developing new products and closing the global protection gap.
Matthew Britten, PwC Insurance partner, commented: “The industry is poised to capitalize on the potential that technological advancement can bring to solve important problems such as narrowing the protection gap, and developing and pricing the products that are needed to address the emerging, intangible risks that customers are facing.”
“However, insurers and reinsurers need to increase their flexibility and willingness to experiment and take risks to ensure that these advancements do not remain only around the edges,” he added.
A recent PwC survey of re/insurance industry Chief Executive Officers (CEO) supported the panel’s outlook, finding that 90% of respondents were optimistic about their own organisations’ revenue prospects over the next three years.
Britten continued: “There are significant growth opportunities for insurers and reinsurers in assisting governments in de-risking, narrowing the protection gap, and developing new products to address emerging intangible risks, such as cyber.”
In other news to come out of PwC’s Insurance Summit event, Premier of Bermuda, the Hon. David Burt, JP, MP, explained that he would like to see Bermuda take the title of the world’s insurtech capital.
