Tag: Reinsurance
On Victims of Love
Love is seemingly in the air in 2015 with the engagement of Axis to Partner Re recently announced hot on the heels of the betrothal of Catlin to XL. Guessing who will be next up the aisle is the favourite game in the coffee shops and wine bars of the London Market. Few doubt that by the end of this year, more companies will get … Continue reading On Victims of Love
On Diversity and Inclusion
Over the course of this year, a number of organisations in the London insurance market have publically committed to Lloyd’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter. A steering group of inclusion champions led by Aon’s Dominic Christian will be issuing guidance in 2015 on how signatories can get started on policies and practices to promote positive change in our industry. High on the list of priorities will … Continue reading On Diversity and Inclusion
On Wholesalers Endangered
The increasing dominance of the global brokers and the economic leverage that this provides is a strategic challenge for all insurers dependent upon them for significant premiums flows. Responses in the industry have varied but a growing number of companies are re-engineering the way they procure business from the big three; either paying to obtain data services or participating on proprietary risk placement platforms and in … Continue reading On Wholesalers Endangered
On Power to the People
A little out of fashion of late but there is still much to be learned from a bit of Marxist analysis. As students of the great bearded one’s work will know, he saw human evolution as a massive class struggle between the small number of bourgeoisie who own the means of production and the rest of us who toil away to produce their goods and … Continue reading On Power to the People
On Leaving Europe
True, emotions were running high over the exorbitant costs of implementing Solvency II, widely seen as a project poorly mishandled in Brussels, but in adding his signature to an open letter to The Times in January 2013 supporting David Cameron’s yes/no referendum strategy on UK’s European Union (EU) membership, Lloyd’s Chairman John Nelson may have sent a hawkish signal to producers on the Continent whose … Continue reading On Leaving Europe
On thanking the Regulator…really
Since the financial crisis in 2008, the insurance industry has seemed transfixed, even paralysed at times by regulation-anxiety. The dash to introduce Solvency II; an expensive sprint to a finish-line, ultimately stretched by the EU rule makers, led to some rancorous exchanges between insurance leaders and those setting the policy as the full implications of compliance emerged. The chatter now in the market is about … Continue reading On thanking the Regulator…really
On Going Global
The Japanese fiscal year drew to a close at March end with all three major insurers posting stronger 2013 earnings. This despite a weaker contribution from domestic non-life business hit hard by the February snowstorms. No surprise therefore that the stand-out performance was from Tokio Marine whose profitability increased by 42% largely on the back of executing a more aggressive investment strategy internationally compared … Continue reading On Going Global
On Innovation in the Workplace
With a little help from Brad Pitt on the way, arguably it was Michael Lewis who first introduced ‘big data’ into the public consciousness with the publication of his book Moneyball more than a decade ago. His account of how a baseball club assembled a competitive and ultimately successful team despite its weak financial situation revealed to a global audience the power of analytical, evidence-based … Continue reading On Innovation in the Workplace
On Hostile Takeovers
Punctuated only by the news of increasingly desperate efforts to find a missing plane in the Indian Ocean, the market awoke from a soporific start to 2014 on 14 April when Endurance launched their $3.2 billion bid to acquire fellow Bermudian based specialty insurer Aspen. In addressing their offer directly to Aspen’s shareholders without the support of the company’s board of directors, Endurance set the … Continue reading On Hostile Takeovers
Roger Bickmore 