All kinds of financial services companies have been impacted by the global economic crisis. But if there is one subset of these businesses that has weathered the storm better than most, it might be life reinsurers. Contributing to direct writers' woes is the drying-up of the capital and credit markets. Insurers rely on these financial sources to provide reserves for their robust term-life and universal-life insurance lines. Reinsurers already may be experiencing an uptick in ceded business. The trend toward lower cession rates may have reversed course last year, when the economy crashed and direct writers felt greater risk-mitigation pressures. Another factor that's likely to affect an uptick in cession rates, said A.M. Best Vice President Stephen Irwin, is the drying up of capital-mark...
..., is the drying up of capital-market solutions that direct writers used to fund the reserves for ...
With $28.4 billion in gross written premiums in 2006, Swiss Re is the largest global reinsurer, according to AM Best Co. It edged out Munich Re for the top position last year, due in part to its 2006 acquisition of sixth-ranked GE Insurance Solutions. Founded in 1863, Swiss Re also is one of the oldest insurance companies in the world. The firm offers traditional life and property/casualty reinsurance, as well as capital market solutions such as insurance-linked securities. Swiss Re prides itself on being ahead of the pack when it comes to focusing on emerging risks. For the past 20 years, Swiss Re has encouraged the insurance industry -- and lawmakers around the world -- to address looming perils such as climate change. While property reinsurance contracts are often for one-year terms,...
Despite the presence of a soft market in the majority of the property and casualty insurance industry, innovation continues apace in the alternative risk transfer (ART) market. Generally, these solutions center around several capital market products. Cat bonds are written to cover a very narrowly defined risk, typically wind, on an excess of loss basis. Another are weather derivatives that involve less-than-catastrophic consequences. These are the losses that occur due to small temperature changes. Insurance-linked securitizations have also continued to gain favor with the capital market investors. It is basically a financial technique that pools assets together and converts them into a tradable security. According to SwissRe, the current outstanding volume of insurance-linked securitie...
Powerit Solutions, Seattle. Wash., a leading provider of intelligent... in new funding from Siemens Venture Capital and ArcelorMittal's Clean Technology Fund, as well... growth into new industrial and commercial markets, solidify leadership in remote and on-site energy ...
After concluding that the US is woefully unable to attract capital in this day of universal transparency and borderless trading, US Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson, Jr, officially floated his capital markets comeback plan in late June, although, truth be told, it is more of a "list of things to talk about" than it is something resembling the European Union's Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). The FSAP began much as Paulson's plan has, with the acknowledgement of a problem, and a high-powered academic leading a task force of wise men coming up with solutions. In Europe, the problem was a fractured capital market. In the US the problem is a hodgepodge of outdated regulatory mechanisms and practices. A cornerstone of Paulson's plan is to emphasize principles-based, risk-focused regu...
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