Reinsurance News
Coronavirus news
Coronavirus news coverage of relevance to reinsurance and insurance markets.
All of our Covid-19 coronavirus news, analysis and insight related to insurance and reinsurance market impacts can be found below.
The coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic of 2019-20 resulted in significant disruption and threatened losses widely across the insurance and reinsurance markets.
Report says US insurers turned increasingly to tech during pandemic
31st March 2022
A new report from Information Services Group states that many US insurers turned to technology to meet changing operational and market demands through the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the firm, its 2021 ISG Provider Lens Insurance Platform Solutions Report for the US finds the pandemic served as a catalyst for digital ... Read the full article
COVID resurgence in China impacting supply chains, warns Maersk
31st March 2022
Shipping and logistics company Maersk has warned that flare-ups of COVID-19 across many of China’s largest cities are having an adverse effect on global supply chains. A number of cities in China, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Qingdao, are currently dealing with a resurgence in COVID cases. In response, the ... Read the full article
COVID widened insurance innovation divide: AM Best
28th March 2022
Analysts at AM Best have argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the ‘innovation divide’ among nonlife re/insurers, with a clear link to better top-line growth for insurers with more-developed innovation initiatives. In a new report, the rating agency found that global nonlife insurers with higher innovation assessments had a five-year ... Read the full article
Re/insurers to appeal Australia’s pandemic test case verdict
22nd March 2022
A number of major insurers and reinsurers, including Swiss Re, IAG and Chubb, are seeking to contest the verdict of Australia’s pandemic test case in the country’s High Court. These insurers and others filed documents for an appeal on Monday, according to reports from The Australian, as did two insured businesses ... Read the full article
European reinsurers enjoy better P&C results as COVID recedes
15th March 2022
Analysts at Moody’s have highlighted better overall property and casualty (P&C) results among the largest four European reinsurers, which they say are mainly a function of significantly lower COVID-19 losses than in 2020. For P&C business, new COVID-19 claims fell in 2021 as the companies introduced in their policies wording to ... Read the full article
Thai insurers under COVID claims pressure: AM Best
9th March 2022
Operating losses relating to medical insurance products covering COVID-19 infections have put considerable strain on the operating performance and balance sheets of several Thailand insurers, according to analysts at AM Best. The rating agency notes that most of the COVID-19 claims in the country have come from a short-term policy that ... Read the full article
RGA’s full year net income rises despite $1.4bn in COVID-19 claims
4th February 2022
U.S life reinsurance company, Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), has reported net income of $617 million for the full year 2021 in spite of pre-tax COVID-19 claims of around $1.4 billion. Year-on-year, RGA's 2021 net income swelled by more than 48%, while operating income fell dramatically, from $496 million in 2020 ... Read the full article
FBD reaches agreement with reinsurers on COVID-19 BI recoveries
31st January 2022
FBD Insurance has now reached an agreement with reinsurers on how recoveries will operate relating to COVID-19 business interruption (BI) claims from public house customers. As we wrote last year, the Irish High Court previously ruled that FBD Insurance must compensate four pub owners for the disruption caused to their ... Read the full article
Covid-19 prompts investment rethinking for insurers
24th January 2022
The Covid-19 pandemic, two years in, has caused major shifts in the investment policies of major insurers, according to a new report from bfinance. The Insurer Investment Survey, released this week, reports on how insurers have been working to improve their investment outcomes since March 2020. This move, said bfinance, in ... Read the full article
BI test case payouts approach £1.3bn at one-year mark: FCA
20th January 2022
New data from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) shows that the total reported claims payments for policies related to the COVID-19 business interruption (BI) test case in the UK are now approaching £1.3 billion, 12 months on from the Supreme Court's final ruling on the case. The data shows that, as ... Read the full article
COVID-19 the third costliest catastrophe event for re/insurers, says Howden
5th January 2022
Insurance and reinsurance industry losses from the COVID-19 pandemic up to the end of the third quarter of 2021 near $45 billion, making it the third most expensive catastrophe event for the industry, according to broker Howden's reinsurance renewals report. Behind only 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina (the most expensive insured loss ... Read the full article
Post-pandemic GDP levels comparable to Great Depression: SCOR
31st December 2021
According to a new report from SCOR, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden quasi-global economic standstill and consequently led to a significant drop in global GDP, at levels comparable to those observed during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The anticipation of such a massive drop in global GDP over a ... Read the full article
Pandemic triggers 12% contraction in LatAm market, MAPFRE finds
31st December 2021
The Latin American insurance market registered an 11.9% decrease in premiums during the year of the pandemic, to $134.4 billion, according to new data from MAPFRE. Of the total premium figure, 57% came from non-life insurance and the remaining 43% from life insurance, MAPFRE reported. The sector’s contraction was caused mainly by ... Read the full article
Latest COVID wave poses milder economic threat: Swiss Re
6th December 2021
With many parts of Europe currently experiencing a winter resurgence in COVID-19 cases and restrictions, analysts at Swiss Re have assured that this latest wave of the pandemic represents a less severe threat to economic activity than previous ones. The reinsurer’s optimism primarily stems from higher population immunity in affected countries, ... Read the full article
Future systemic risks a key industry concern: Survey
10th November 2021
More than 18 months after the spread of the novel COVID-19 virus caused nations from all corners of the world to lockdown for the first time, respondents to our recent reinsurance market survey have concerns about the risk transfer industry’s ability to navigate such a challenge in the future. The ... Read the full article
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