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.
COVID-19 reinforces Lloyd’s need to modernise: AM Best
3rd September 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of modernising Lloyd's and helped soften some of the cultural resistance to change, according to analysts at AM Best. As part of its execution plans for the first phase of strategy, Lloyd’s confirmed earlier this year that it was aiming to take a ... Read the full article
Reinsurer results weakening as COVID claims intensify: Moody’s
2nd September 2020
Analysts at Moody’s consider the earnings of the global reinsurance sector to be weak over the first half of 2020, due to the increase in coronavirus claims. Although investment returns rebounded in the second quarter of the year, COVID-19 claims also increased significantly over this period, Moody’s noted. One bright spot was ... Read the full article
LIIBA CEO Croft welcomes reopening of the underwriting room at Lloyd’s
1st September 2020
Christopher Croft, CEO of broker body LIIBA, has welcomed today's reopening of the Lloyd's underwriting room, describing the tacit knowledge exchange that comes from being together as "crucial" to London's ability to trade risks the rest of the world can’t. Lloyd’s CEO John Neal announced recently that face coverings will ... Read the full article
IRB Brasil Re sinks to $125mn loss in Q2
1st September 2020
Brazilian reinsurer IRB Brasil Re recorded a net loss of $124.7 million in the second quarter of 2020, compared to a $72.3 million profit in the prior year quarter. The firm's combined ratio for the quarter stood at 167%, up from 84.7% in the prior year quarter. Written premium increased 8% year-over- year and ... Read the full article
Emerging market insurers to be hardest hit by COVID-19: Swiss Re
1st September 2020
Reinsurance giant Swiss Re has reported that emerging market insurers will be the hardest-hit globally by COVID-19. It is estimated that insurers will be hit with a 3.6 percentage point impact on premium growth in each of 2020 and 2021. However, China's insurance market is the exception, with average premium growth of ... Read the full article
Asia pandemic claims manageable but evolving: Fitch
1st September 2020
Asian reinsurers’ losses related to the coronavirus pandemic appear to be on a manageable scale thus far due to tight measures to curb the spread of the virus, according to Fitch Ratings. The rating agency noted that most Asian reinsurers entered the crisis well-capitalised, but warned that business growth could slow ... Read the full article
North American P&C results stable despite COVID challenges: Fitch
28th August 2020
Analysts at Fitch Ratings have noted that the H1 results of the North America property and casualty (P&C) re/insurance sector show “relative stability” despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, operating performance for this sector declined over the first six months of 2020, as the pandemic hit underwriting results and ... Read the full article
Japanese life insurance sets example for managing low rates: Fitch Ratings
28th August 2020
With insurers in Japan having long been affected by ultra-low interest rates, Fitch Ratings sees its life insurance market as an opportunity for insight into the potential environment insurers worldwide will be operating in since the emergence of COVID-19. The Bank of Japan decreased interest rates significantly in response to the economic ... Read the full article
Reinsurers to absorb large share of COVID losses: Fitch
27th August 2020
Analysts at Fitch Ratings believe that reinsurers are set to absorb a large share of the losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Fitch reported a 10.4 point increase in the overall combined ratio of the reinsurance sector over the first half of 2020, which rose to an underwriting loss at 101.8% ... Read the full article
Maghreb region’s solid insurance sector growth to continue, says A.M. Best
27th August 2020
AM Best has released a new report, “The Maghreb – One Region, Three Unique Insurance Markets,” which examines the long-term prospects of the three insurance markets of the region. Despite the countries being so close whilst having many commonalities, the insurance markets of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia couldn’t be more different ... Read the full article
COVID-19 claims far lower than loss estimates so far: Berenberg
26th August 2020
According to analysts at Berenberg, COVID-19 insurance claims to date only add up to around half of industry loss estimates, meaning the pandemic may be more comparable to a very large natural catastrophe event rather than an extraordinarily large one. Berenberg previously estimated that insured losses due to COVID-19 claims would ... Read the full article
World economic resilience to fall in 2020; protection gap hits $1.24tn: Swiss Re
26th August 2020
The impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is expected to drive an almost 20% reduction in global macroeconomic resilience in 2020, while the global protection gap (disparity between economic and insured losses) has hit a new high of $1.24 trillion, according to Swiss Re Institute. In its latest annual resilience indices, ... Read the full article
COVID-19 looking more like an earnings event than a capital event: David Flandro
24th August 2020
Speaking during a recent second quarter earnings update, Hyperion X's David Flandro outlined a belief that COVID-19 is looking more like an earnings event than a capital event, despite the sizeable difficulties remaining for the re/insurance sector as a result of the pandemic. Flandro, noting how reinsurers have taken a larger ... Read the full article
Lloyd’s unlikely to turn an underwriting profit in 2020: S&P
21st August 2020
With COIVD-19 having already caused sizeable losses and with the North Atlantic hurricane season still a factor, S&P Global Ratings considers it unlikely that Lloyd's of London will turn an underwriting profit in 2020. S&P notes how despite an overall profit in 2019, its first since 2016, Lloyd's underwriting remained unprofitable, ... Read the full article
Lloyd’s Lab focus on COVID-19 solutions a positive for the industry: GlobalData
21st August 2020
Lloyd’s Lab, an incubator for startups in the re/insurance sector at Lloyd’s of London, will be continuing and actively focusing on pandemic solutions. Last month it announced the latest cohort of InsurTech disruptors that will join the Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator programme. The new Lab teams will join Praedicat, Metabiota ... Read the full article
Getting your daily reinsurance news from Reinsurance News is a simple way to receive only the reinsurance industry news that matters, delivered directly to your email inbox.
