Douglas Shillito
This week, an A.M.Best report stated that there was less European insurance M&A activity in 2016. UK car premiums continued to rise, impacted by Ogden and Insurance Premium Tax changes, and Fitch said that international insurance regulation was progressing slowly. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a Guidance consultation covering the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR) recommendations, whilst the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) send a stress test request to UK's largest general insurers. An EDHEC position paper said there should be a reduction in Solvency II calibration relating to property investments, and Insurance Europe called for clarification of the revised PRIIPs Regulatory Technical Standards. The Lloyd's Market Association (LMA) challenged the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision to broaden the scope of compulsory motor insurance, in response to consultation, and the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are joining forces to tackle the protection gap faced by women, and increase their knowledge of risk and access to insurance. AIRMIC announced a new chief executive.
On the company front, Swiss Re estimated its Tropical Cyclone Debbie claims costs at around $350m, and total market insured losses at $1.3bn, and Zurich successfully acquired Sydney-based Cover-More Group. Milliman and Barnett Waddingham announced a joint venture-operating under the name of MBW International, which brings together the significant expertise of the two independent firms to deliver global retirement benefits advice to companies with headquarters in the UK and global companies with UK operations. The LV= 2016 result was impacted by the Ogden discount rate change. There were senior appointments at Crawford, XL Catlin, and MAXIS GBN.
ACORD and consultancy R3 are to launch a Centre of Excellence for distributed ledger technology in the global insurance industry. Disruptive commercial insurance broker Konsileo launched, and Munich Re and Sompo-backed Trov closed a further $45m in Series D funding. Meanwhile, the FCA outlined its progress on innovation at the Innovate Finance Global Summit. Beazley joined the EbixExchange accounting platform, and Iowa-based IMT Group selected Majesco Billing in the Cloud as their enterprise solution. AXA is the insurance lead in autonomous vehicle consortium CAPRI which has just secured more than £4.2m of funding.
Full articles on the above topics may be found on the Insurance Newslink and Financial Newslink global trends database services at www.onlystrategic.com.