A.M. BestTV at RIMS: As Insurers’ Range of Competitors Widens, Leaders Say Scaling Up Matters

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OLDWICK - APRIL 16, 2018 12:38 PM (EDT)
In this ^A.M.BestTV episode at The Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.’s (RIMS) conference in San Antonio, TX, a panel of property/casualty and reinsurance leaders said the industry may be in for additional mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as insurers respond to escalating customer needs and new forms of competition, including from capital markets. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=rims1418 to view the entire program. For full video coverage of RIMS, including exclusive executive interviews, visit http://www.ambest.tv/rims18 .

Panel participants said the property/casualty industry is evolving more rapidly than ever before.

Lex Baugh, chief executive officer, North American general insurance, American International Group, Inc., spoke about how much M&As have impacted the industry.

“It is a pro-competitive market. M&As are bringing capacity to the market, which has enabled it to continue to expand and develop business,” said Baugh. “The period where there were lots of releases of prior-year reserves is probably over for a while. That means there is stress on the industry.”

Greg Hendrick, president, property/casualty insurance and reinsurance, XL Catlin, believes some of the stress on the market is the result of emerging risks.

“Cyber is not new, but it seems to be ever-emerging. The industry needs to find a way to build a tower of capacity, which specifically addresses cyber and all the perils that come with it, whether it is property, liability and/or peoples’ data,” said Hendrick.

Looking forward, Lori Goltermann, chief executive officer, Aon Risk Solutions, said that, “the digital economy is going to collide with the physical assets of a company. As each company’s customer profile changes, there is going to be a need to drive more e-commerce and to have the distribution of products change … the boundaries of what you used to think were the exposures are much different today.”

Recent episodes of ^A.M.BestTV include:

• No Company Will Ever be Done With Enterprise Risk Management, Says A.M. Best Managing Director: Jim Gillard, managing director, criteria, research and analytics, A.M. Best, previews his presentation set for The Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.’s (RIMS) conference in San Antonio, TX, on how enterprise risk management is evolving for insurers and how that affects insurers’ financial strength: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=rimswalkup418 .


• CIMA Insurers Set to Boost Capital, Focus on Enterprise Risk, Says A.M. Best Senior Analyst: Charlotte Vigier, senior financial analyst, A.M. Best, reviews the market conditions and regulatory changes shaping the insurance sector in the 14 countries that make up the Conférence Interafricaine des Marchés d’Assurances (CIMA) zone in Francophone Africa: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=cima_english418 .


• Digital Risks Often Travel in Waves, Say CyberCube Modelers: Ashwin Kashyap, co-founder and vice president, and Joshua Pyle, actuarial director, both of CyberCube, said incidents of electronic intrusion sometimes appear to follow patterns, such as waves of breaches, ransomware and infrastructure attacks: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=kashyappyle418 .

^A.M.BestTV covers exclusive A.M. Best information and reports, targeted topics and key developments in the (re)insurance industry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sign up for alerts of episodes at http://www.ambest.com/multimedia/ambtvsignup.html . View ^A.M.BestTV episodes at http://www.ambest.tv.

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