Catastrophe Bonds A to Z

A reader of this publication, the president of an insurance agency, recently wrote to say he kept hearing about catastrophe bonds but had little knowledge of what they were. He was curious if these ...

Liquid Gold

One of Extraordinary Re's many innovations is a patented technology process that transforms each reinsurance contract assumed on its trading platform into what are called "liquid insurance ...

New World of Digital Recruiting: Chatbots, Videos and Social Media

Long gone are the days when employees printed their resumes and cover letters on fancy paper, worried about choosing the proper font, and put both documents in the mail. The idea of employers ...

When Disaster Strikes, Sustainable Insurance and Reinsurance Industry Vital in Uncertain World: Swiss Re's Ojeisekhoba

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore described it as "the first taste of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us over and over again." That devastating event ...

Insurers Increasingly Seek Legacy Transfers to Shed Long-Tail Liabilities

Several recent reserve cover deals—including the single-largest reinsurance transaction on record—demonstrate a growing interest on the part of insurers to shed their long-tail liabilities. A ...

Former Guy Carpenter Chairman Newhouse Discusses His Career Changing Events

Everybody has career-changing events and life-changing events—and sometimes, as with the case of Britt Newhouse, events from those two worlds collide. Newhouse, the former chairman of reinsurance ...

Navigating the InsurTech Wave

Reinsurance companies increasingly are funding InsurTech startups in order to structure more innovative products and improve their business efficiencies, but how much impact on the industry will ...

Casualty: The Next ILS Frontier?

For the last several years, participants in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market have frequently discussed the question of market expansion. In a market with consistently declining property ...

Blockchain Is Technological Evolution That Will Create Insurance, Reinsurance Revolution: B3i's Marke

Blockchain technology is moving out of the lab and into the insurance business. It's moving past the hype phase and is edging closer to providing real-life efficiency improvements for the industry. ...

Ways to Inspire Young Talent to Choose Insurance as a Rewarding Career

When you meet someone new or chat with an old acquaintance, do you share stories about exciting innovations in the insurance industry? Do you tell people about how the industry helps people after ...

Improvements in Predictive Analytics Help With Early Identification of Workers Comp Reinsurance Claims

The early identification of claims likely to pierce reinsurance retention levels has long been a challenge for primary insurers and reinsurers. The good news is that over the past decade or so, the ...

A Deep Dive Into Willis Re's Cyber Modeling Tools

Willis Re's proprietary PRISM-Re cyber modeling tool considers catastrophic as well as attritional losses to portfolios of risk. It employs a two-part framework for analysis of cyber threats. The ...

Disciplined Exposure Management Helps Reinsurers Absorb 2017 Catastrophes: Fitch

The global reinsurance industry demonstrated resiliency following the record level of catastrophe losses in 2017, as very strong capitalization and effective risk management enabled the sector to ...

Insurers Increasingly Leverage Reinsurance & Cat Models for Strategic Risk Management

With competitive reinsurance rates and abundant capacity, many insurers are choosing to expand their strategic reinsurance purchases to mitigate earnings volatility and better manage their capital. ...

Steering Clear of the Cedent Insolvency 'Fatberg'

I started working in the London reinsurance market in 1978. Forty years' later, after a journey through various roles to running my own business today, I've seen many insurers and reinsurers come and ...

How to Attract Millennials and Overcome the Looming Talent Shortage

What do millennials want? This question is critical for the specialty insurance and reinsurance industry. We face a looming talent shortage. Retirement will soon skim off the cream of our industry's ...

Newhouse's Leadership Lessons

Britt Newhouse, former chairman of Guy Carpenter, discussed some lessons in leadership from his career and his parents. He often recalls things his mother and father told him—truisms for both life ...

Ignore the Naysayers: Blockchain's Potential Touches Every Aspect of Insurance

Every emerging technology has its naysayers, who can be very accomplished in their field and still end up being wrong. For example, columnist and economist Paul Krugman once opined on the Internet's ...

Cyber Catastrophe Modeling: Challenges of an Inexact Science

Insurers, their regulators and ratings agencies are increasingly aware of the potential for a catastrophic cyber loss. The aggregation of cyber risk assumed under policies providing affirmative or ...

Extraordinary Re's Extraordinary Idea

Imagine there's a way for institutional investors to trade insurance risks much like they trade stocks. Well, imagine no more. A new and unique reinsurer, Extraordinary Re, has hit upon the novel ...

Strategic Blockchain: Xceedance and ChainThat Gain Critical Mass

Xceedance decided to jump on the blockchain bandwagon late last year—but rather than building its own platform, it invested in ChainThat, a specialist provider of blockchain solutions for the ...

Diversity and Inclusion Help Drive Business Success

There has never been a better time for the insurance profession to begin deepening the conversation around diversity and inclusion (D&I). In fact, there has never been a better time to capitalize ...

Convergence of Tech and Insurance Will Transform Rather Than Disrupt Industry: Munich Re's Hochburger

The insurance industry is experiencing a convergence with technology that is transforming the way it develops products, underwrites, prices and sells policies, and services its customers. This change ...

U.S. Flood Models Are Still in Their Infancy, So Underwriters Must Be 'Cautious Consumers'

The market for privately written inland flood insurance in the United States is growing rapidly, but flood modeling is still in its infancy. As a result, underwriters need to be aware of the ...