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.

Coronavirus halts new policy sales for Hong Kong insurers: Report

10th February 2020

Insurance companies in Hong Kong are feeling the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak with policy sales declining significantly so far in 2020, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Insurers in the region are continuing to deal with a serious decline in new policy sales as a result of the recent protests ... Read the full article

Hannover Re exposure to coronavirus not significant, says CEO

5th February 2020

Hannover Re does not anticipate any significant exposure to losses that could stem from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, according to its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jean-Jacques Henchoz. While it remains too early to assess losses, Hannover Re’s management is confident that the company has limited exposure to pandemic risk in Asia, ... Read the full article

Coronavirus poses limited threat to Chinese insurers: Moody’s

4th February 2020

Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service believe that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak poses only a limited threat to the Chinese insurance sector, with disruption likely to stem mostly from broader economic impacts. The firm noted that Hubei, the province at the centre of the outbreak, only accounted for around 4% of domestic ... Read the full article

Coronavirus risk highest for mortality-focused US life insurers: Fitch

3rd February 2020

Life insurers with high exposure to mortality risk could face the most potential credit risk if the spread of the coronavirus in the US continues to accelerate, according to Fitch Ratings. However, the impact on life insurers would vary based on product mix, use of reinsurance and potential geographic concentrations, Fitch ... Read the full article

Reinsurers face highest risks from coronavirus, says A.M. Best

31st January 2020

Analysts at AM Best believe that reinsurers could face higher levels of risk related to the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak than their primary life & health counterparts. The rating agency noted that reinsurers typically have higher exposures to mortality and morbidity risks, and may have as much as 40% or more of ... Read the full article

Coronavirus highlights lack of cover for outbreak-related BI

29th January 2020

Experts have said that global companies are expected to be faced with billions of dollars of losses as a result of disruptions caused by the new coronavirus in China, reports Reuters. The large majority of insurance claims from the new coronavirus in China are expected to be from businesses, most notably ... Read the full article

Coronavirus a low-risk threat for AIG, says Credit Suisse

29th January 2020

The potential impact of the Coronavirus on insurer AIG appears to be fairly low despite the company’s considerable exposure to pandemic risk and its high share in the Chinese P&C market, according to Credit Suisse. However, analysts cautioned that they were “not highly confident” in their assessment, given AIG’s evolving global ... Read the full article

Too early to understand China coronavirus threat, Swiss Re CEO explains

24th January 2020

The emerging outbreak of a previously unknown coronavirus in China is still in its early stages and data remains scarce making it challenging to understand how large a threat the virus could be, Swiss Re CEO Christian Mumenthaler explained recently. Speaking during an interview with Bloomberg TV at the World Economic ... Read the full article

Top reinsurers’ exposure to Wuhan coronavirus, Asia pandemic analysed

23rd January 2020

With official numbers of the Wuhan coronavirus currently standing at 585 confirmed infected and 17 dead, Morgan Stanley analysts have detailed the extent to which the top four European global reinsurers are exposed to pandemic risk in Asia. As of 2018, Munich Re wrote €2.3 billion in premiums in Asia via ... Read the full article