This year, the global insurance industry saw more than $100 billion in insured losses due to natural disasters. Normally, losses are accompanied by rate increases, but many insurers have not been raising premiums as much as analysts and consumers had expected. The fact that insurers have issued only modest rate hikes throughout the world has had a profound impact on the investment business. Investors are now having trouble figuring out which companies are good targets for the 2012 fiscal year, as many have emerged from 2011 catastrophes will healthy capital…
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Connecticut Insurance Department teams with the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority to protect consumers
The Connecticut Insurance Department has entered into a new agreement with the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in order to better supervise an insurance organization that does business in both Germany and the U.S. The agreement is the second between the two entities in the past three months. Insurance Commissioner Thomas Leonardi believes that ensuring the financial stability of insurance companies is vastly important to the protection of consumers. Regulation, according to Leonardi, is the best way to keep insurers from making costly decisions that could compromise the economy. As…
Read MoreCombined Insurance Co. of America receives $8.7 million fine for regulatory breaches
Non-life insurance company, Combined Insurance Co. of America has received fines totaling $8.7 million in the United Kingdom and Ireland due to a number of regulatory breaches. The insurer sells its products via agents affiliated with the company, and is required to pay a fine of $4.36 million to the Central Bank of Ireland through its Combined Insurance Co. of Europe Ltd. division. Separately, the company received a fine worth $4.34 million from the U.K. Financial Services Authority as a result of a failure to manage its selling processes, as…
Read MoreGlobal insurance and banking regulators call for more oversight in the industry
As the world’s economy continues to sputter ever onward, global insurance and banking regulators are setting their sights on financial institutions that provide insurance products. These institutions contributed to the global recession in varying degrees, and regulators now want to ensure that a similar crisis does not form due to lack of oversight. Regulators have drafted a new set of rules that aim to assess whether banks selling insurance products are managing their liquidity and capital levels as they are meant to. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International…
Read MoreIncrease expected for commercial insurance rates
Though consumers have been seeing steady increases in rates for casualty, property, home, and auto insurance, companies have not seen any notable raises in their own insurance costs. Yet. The sensitivity of businesses to increases for insurance rates runs much deeper, and some new competition has brought some of the business for commercial insurance to Canada. Those two factors have allowed the price of those plans and policies to remain relatively steady over the last few years. However, according to RSA Canada’s chief executive, Rowan Saunders, this trend will not…
Read MoreChina insurance market growing too fast for domestic insurers to handle
China’s insurance market is experience major growing pains, according to a report from Standard & Poor’s, a credit rating agency based in the U.S. The Chinese market is, by all accounts, enormous and the potential for success in second to none. The full breadth of this potential success, however, is open only to Chinese insurers. Native insurers are now facing demand for coverage that they are having trouble meeting. Many companies, including New China Life, one of the largest life insurers in the country, are plagued with capital shortfalls due…
Read MoreInsurance executives concerned for the future of the insurance sector, says KPGM report
Optimism for the business conditions for the insurance industry in the U.S. is beginning to expire, according to a new report from KPGM, an audit, tax and advisory firm. The report shows that many of the nation’s highest ranking insurance executives are growing pessimistic of the conditions governing the insurance sector. These executives claim that conditions are worse now than they were a year ago and may gradually grow worse as the global economy shows signs of ailing. One of the major challenges facing the industry, notes KPGM, is the…
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