A new year has dawned and as celebrations from the holidays die down, insurers turn a wary eye toward a potentially chaotic future. 2011 has gained infamy as one of the worst years in recent history in terms of natural disasters. While some insurance organizations claim the total cost of worldwide catastrophes hovers in the range of $100 billion, Munich Re, a global reinsurance and risk solutions firm, asserts that the real total of global disasters is at $310 billion. Risk modelers have yet to release their predictions regarding the…
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Despite disasters, global insurance industry sees only modest rate hikes in 2011
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…
Read MoreReport shows the rocky road of the property casualty insurance industry during 2011
ISO, a risk assessment firm specializing in the property/casualty insurance industry, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) have released a new report showing the impact natural disasters had upon the P/C insurance industry in 2011. This year has become infamous for the number of severe storms and other natural disasters that have rocked the U.S. and other nations. The report notes that while the property/casualty industry grew in some aspects, it saw steep losses in others, with the most severe losses coming in a short 9-month period.…
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 MoreAmerican car insurance risk starts to rise following record breaking low
The proprietary Auto Insurance Risk Index from TransUnion has reported a tiny rise by 0.03 percent at the end of 2011’s third quarter, following four consecutive declines in the previous quarters. The score at the end of the third quarter was 98.85, which, when compared to the second quarter, is three basis points higher. Equally, though, it remains 31 basis points below what it was at the same time in 2010. The peak of the recession in the second quarter of 2009 was 73 basis points higher than it is…
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