Reinsurance 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.
21st April 2020
Leaders from across the UK insurance industry have come together to form a new steering group, which will work in collaboration with Pool Re, in an effort to strengthen its response to future pandemics. The primary objective of the group, which met for the first time on Friday April 17th, is ... Read the full article
21st April 2020
Property and casualty re/insurers in Germany are only expected to see a limited impact from the downturn in equity markets as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, reports actuarial consultancy firm, Meyerthole Siems Kohlruss (MSK). The reason for such a limited impact is down to the fact that stock ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
The UK Government is in talks about implementing a trade credit reinsurance backstop scheme for the duration of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to reports from Sky News. Insurers are reportedly discussing a new scheme with the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that would prevent the ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
Analysts at Morgan Stanley have lowered catastrophe loss estimates for both U.S. primary insurers and reinsurers ahead of Q1 2020 results season, driven in part by lower-than-expected U.S. spring storm activity. Unsurprisingly, the focus of first-quarter 2020 results is expected to be the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but a reduction in ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
AM Best has predicted that re/insurers could see their capital and surplus hit as a result of sharp equity market declines caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The rating agency added that surplus losses could exceed those experience in the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis. Analysts observed that the 20% decline in ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
SCOR CEO Denis Kessler has cautioned against the introduction of a pandemic insurance scheme to mutualise operating losses for businesses, while acknowledging that the crisis could “change the course of history.” Speaking in an interview with Le Point, Kessler questioned the advisability and feasibility of relying on systems that mutualise business ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
QBE Insurance Group Limited has announced AUD 2.6 million (approx. USD 1.7mn) in direct funding to support the global response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The insurer states that these funds will be disbursed via the QBE Foundation's existing global charity and not-for-profit partners, designed to help agencies experiencing greater demand ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re has confirmed that its authorised new public share buyback programme of up to CHF 1 million (USD 1.03mn) will not be launched due to current financial market volatility being driven by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Following commentary from analysts that the Switzerland-based reinsurer's share buyback programme ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
Speaking on a recent call to Morgan Stanley, David Flandro stated a belief that, in the absence of government intervention, COVID-19 will have a minimal/moderate impact on losses for the re/insurance industry. Flandro, Managing Director of Analytics at Hyperion X, noted how there is no evidence the impact from the pandemic ... Read the full article
20th April 2020
South Korea’s life insurance market is set to decline by 1.2% in 2020, as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic compounding pre-existing pressure from stagnating sales, according to GlobalData analysis. Deblina Mitra, an insurance analyst at GlobalData, explained that lockdown restrictions due to coronavirus will further prevent new sales through insurance agents and, ... Read the full article
17th April 2020
The global reinsurance capital base is expected to take a hit of approximately 5% from the financial impacts of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, reports Willis Re, the reinsurance arm of global brokerage Willis Towers Watson (WTW). The reinsurance broker's Strategic and Financial Analytics teams' 5% estimate is a marked improvement on ... Read the full article
17th April 2020
Analysts at Morgan Stanley have predicted that increased litigation levels will emerge from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its accompanying economic downturn. Jonathan Molot, Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Burford Capital, confirmed to Morgan Stanley that his firm is currently seeing significant growth in the potential demand for litigation financing ... Read the full article
17th April 2020
South Carolina and Pennsylvania have joined several other US states in pushing for legislation that would require insurers to retroactively cover business interruption losses related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. At the same time, New York has expanded the scope of its previously proposed legislation, while New Jersey has ordered insurers ... Read the full article
17th April 2020
The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) has underlined the importance of public - private partnerships in addressing global pandemic risks. In a recent letter, FERMA has called on the European Commission's coordinating response team to take steps to mitigate the impact of future pandemics in light of the ongoing ... Read the full article
17th April 2020
With mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the P&C market already slowing through 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to deter further activity through 2020, according to analysts at Conning. Conning noted that M&A activity involving acquisitions of property and casualty insurers last year was down approximately 6% compared to 2019. And with ... Read the full article
