http://www.blog-re.com/ Reinsurance Blog en Copyright 2010 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:51:41 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The Reinsurance Magazine team will be tweeting from the World Insurance Forum in Bermuda next week Make sure you follow the Reinsurance team on Twitter at Reinsurance_Mag for all the latest news and gossip at the international insurance conference. To follow the updates from the team go to www.twitter.com/Reinsurance_Mag ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/follow_us_at_the_world_insuran.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/follow_us_at_the_world_insuran.html Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:51:41 +0000 Reinsurance Towers are off on mass to Bermuda next week for the World Insurance Forum and our own little Bermuda Reinsurance Club event (see below) - we hope to see many of you there. As per usual, the radio silence on blog-re over the last couple of weeks mean we have been busy planning something. Not only will we be launching our Club but I will also be out there filming interviews with some of our most loved insurance and reinsurance figures, keep an eye out on our main website for those towards the end of the month. We have also secured a couple of extra panelists for the Club event including John Daum, the interview subject of our December 2009 issue of Reinsurance, and the ever entertaining Don Kramer. We still have a few free places left for the half-day event (Wednesday 17th 9am-1pm) so drop me an email to katherine.blackler@incisivemedia.com if it sounds like your cup of tea and you are not yet registered as if you just turn up on the day we will have to charge you a small registration fee. Enjoy the rest of your week ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/bermuda_fun_in_the_sun.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/bermuda_fun_in_the_sun.html Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:50:03 +0000 Bermuda Reinsurance Club event will be chaired by yours truly and Mairi Mallon of Rein4ce. The panellists include: Barbara Merry, chief executive of Hardy Underwriting, AM Best's Senior Vice President of ratings Matt Mosher, Charles Dupplin, Chief Executive Officer of Hiscox Bermuda, Bradley Kading, president and executive director of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) and Neil McConachie President, and Chief Financial Officer of Lancashire Holdings Ltd. More information and details on how to attend are available here Special discounts on the delegate fee are also available for members of the PWC Bermuda Reinsurance Club. Have a good week ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/the_bermuda_reinsurance_club.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/03/the_bermuda_reinsurance_club.html Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:44:35 +0000 Reinsurance Towers decided to give a few of our favorite legal eagles a call to see if they could explain to us exactly how the sanctions could affect the (re)insurance industry and it would appear that the sanctions (if passed by Congress and echoed by the UN sanctions) will effectively ban all financial institutions offering products to any company trading or transporting refined petroleum (or materials for refining) to Iran. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like it could effect a hell of a lot of (re)insurers, especially in the energy and marine markets. Hannover Re also announced its policy on Iran, but took a slightly different stance saying that it conducts a small amount of business in Iran and will only continue to do so if it complies strictly with sanctions. So are the other (re)insurers overreacting or simply being sensible? Only time will tell but check out our Middle East supplement in our March edition out in a couple of weeks for our thoughts. Have a good weekend ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/better_safe_than_sorry.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/better_safe_than_sorry.html Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:33:15 +0000 Reinsurance Towers are used to getting the not so subtle subject change from some of our favorite PR's when asking their spokespeople what could be known as contentious questions. Usually anything involving politics, major losses and the ever popular "personal issues" topic leads to an intervention - at least before a certain amount of alcohol has been consumed - so you can imagine my surprise when a PR neglected to steer me to the door when the topic of conversation strayed to US politics with a certain broker MD. I only had to mention the words US and sanctions for this Middle Eastern broker to let loose. The chap even referred to the US "starting the Roman decline" if they continue along the current line they are moving towards with Iran. Although as a broker currently doing business in Iran perhaps he is more than a little bit biased... Elsewhere in the world of Reinsurance Towers this week the little Bermuda event we have been planning for 17th March is starting to take shape, whilst the market is captive on the island before flights to New York and London begin the day after WIF. (And yes, I am aware of the very bad joke there - I couldn't resist) We're currently creating a website so you can sign up to attend. I'll make sure to add it here as soon as it is up and running later this week. In the meantime please do email me (katherine.blackler@incisivemedia.com) if you are stuck on the island looking for something to do that morning and I can send you more details. Have a good week ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/q_what_do_bermuda_and_iran_hav.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/q_what_do_bermuda_and_iran_hav.html Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:47:52 +0000 Here is the first of our series of guest blogs. Following yesterday's announcement of the launch of social media platform Goggle Buzz to rival Twitter and Facebook, Peter Dunkley of Total Objects explains how the reinsurance market can use these platforms to their advantage: Web 2.0 is a term that has been with us for some five years now and, although there is as yet no universal definition, it might be loosely viewed as introducing a greater social aspect to the internet. The emergence of web 2.0 technologies has generated much interest, or at least hype, seemingly without creating too many practical applications - and certainly not in the reinsurance sector. However, it is possible for reinsurers to use these technologies to good, practical effect - you just need to think about how to apply them in a reinsurance context. Google's new social media platform appears to be a defensive response to the gradual move away from email as a communications tool by the social media savvy generation, who are now using Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with their friends and even business contacts. Run out of Gmail, Buzz allows people to share content such as photos and video with their friends in a way that is very familiar to users of Facebook. It does provide one interesting feature, which is the ability to aggregate social media content - although this is limited to Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader at the moment - but not Facebook. How does it apply to the world of work, and in particular, reinsurance? At the moment there is little to recommend it. However, many business folk are using Gmail as their main email aggregator. This means that it might, moving forward, provide an instant multi-media communications tool for smarter businesses. If, as is suggested, an enterprise version is to be launched, this might be interesting if it closely integrated with other Google Apps to extend the capability of what are very effective, low cost productivity and collaboration tools. So what else does social media have to offer the reinsurance community? Let's look at the options. Wikis Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia created by a massive and largely unknown group of volunteers across the world. The concept allows content to be created iteratively, backed up by discussion boards, an audit trail and tools that allow you to 'watch' as changes are made to particular pages. It is particularly good as a framework for developing and disseminating new ideas and research. If you are considering a new approach to IBNR, for example, you can place the outline of the concept on the wiki and invite colleagues to review and contribute. Twitter Twitter is a micro-blogging site, with posts limited to the 140 characters allowed by SMS messages, it has become known for mind-numbingly trivial where-am-I-now posts ("In the queue at Starbucks on St Mary Axe looking forward to a skinny soya milk latte") and the abbreviated musings of celebs such as Stephen Fry. The use of Twitter for business has been marketing-led, not altogether successfully, but more interesting uses can be found for its ability to reach an interested audience quickly (and cost-effectively). In the reinsurance market, for example, Twitter could be used by the IT department to notify users of outages to the email system, or to provide immediate news of catastrophes, etc. Facebook to Linkedin Social networking sites such as Facebook can be used as a platform for communications and collaboration with customers, business partners and even competitors. The Group functions allow you to establish communities of interest and, although you could do this on your own website, using Facebook provides a neutral location as well as practically eliminating the time and cost of development and support. There are other, more business-focused, social networking sites such as Linkedin and Xing, the former being the most established. Linkedin is like a Facebook for business. It supports many specific-interest groups and, perhaps most significantly, an opportunity for the web-savvy to recruit without agency costs. Like most of these sites, it doesn't cost anything to join for the basic level of membership. All of these new tools and technologies are relatively easy to master and cheap to implement. They can, if used smartly, make a real difference to your business. They can improve internal and external communications and collaboration and are worth exploring. Peter Dunkley is marketing director at Total Objects, the insurance and reinsurance software specialists Don't forget to follow Reinsurance on twitter www.twitter.com/Reinsurance_Mag and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1942965&trk=hb_side_g ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/buzztacular.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/buzztacular.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:53:03 +0000 p.s. don't forget to take part in our websites survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/23F2JY5]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/just_your_normal_wednesday.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/just_your_normal_wednesday.html Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:16:48 +0000 http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/23F2JY5 Thank you for your time ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/we_need_your_opinions.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/we_need_your_opinions.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:44:27 +0000 On Friday 29th January, Alex Ferguson wrote in The Weekly: Dear all, It's been a weird week this week: Barack Obama's "State Of The Union" address highlights his priorities in helping the American worker; Steve Jobs' "State of the Union Address" in San Francisco means that we'll all be forking out $400 - $700 for a new touchpad iTabletPadPhone computer thingy; and Queens Park Rangers "State of the Union" address on Tuesday, which included the sale of its best player and 5-0 loss in the same day, reflects the state of a medicore football team. But funnily enough, Matthew Chambers didn't care about all of that, because he was with his epilepsy-plagued son in Cincinnati in a kid's hospital, trying to stop the seizures. He's working out whether brain surgery might help little Jude, who has a brain that is short-circuiting more than a bad Duracell factory. What's strange is Matthew's attitude to all of this. As a pastor who hasn't pulled in a steady wage in six months things haven't been easy on him. He's been, well, sunny about it all. And this sunniness and hope is despite having to fork out hundreds of dollars to the pharmaceutical companies for drugs which don't work and hospital fees for the doctors who want to run 400 tests because they are scared that some medical malpractice lawyer might sue their butt off to kingdom come. Oh, and he's not helped by our friends the health insurers, either. "Insurance?" he says. "I can't get any. I tried. The insurers call it a pre-existing condition, and when the cost (of treatment, pills, hospital fees etc) is as high as it is, they won't touch it." What pains me is that Matt's trying to save Jude's life and his future. But then again, why should the insurers care? The insurers will tell you while protesting the Obama health plan that it's not fair (yada, yada, yada), and the shareholders would be really upset. Yes, I'm sure if you asked every shareholder about Jude Chambers, they would all say in one voice: "Screw him". Because quite frankly, that's what their companies are doing now. Before Reinsurance Towers continues on his rant, we'll go back to pain. One of Reinsurance Towers' friends, who works for one of the WHAM brokers, was struck down by crippling stomach pain while on holiday. His insurance claim was for $1700 - but the the insurer's only paying $1,100 - it has refused to pay the bills for his poor wife to feed and clothe herself. "It's in our policy" said the insurer, while giving little quarter to valued things like 'care' and 'decency'. Niiiiiice. But now he's back in the UK, the NHS is taking care of things, thank God, and he won't have to fork out another penny. "I can't understand how in the UK you can get your health for free but in the US they won't treat people who can't afford it or have pre-existing conditions", he told me. Nor can we, mate, nor can we. And back to Matthew Chambers, because there is some silver lining to his cloud. Jude's tests with the kids' hospital in Cincinnati seem to have gone well, he told Reinsurance Towers today. As for the money? "We'll leave that in God's hands," he said. "He's provided for us in the past, and He'll provide for us again." Let's hope He does, Matthew, because the insurance companies won't. http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/a_personal_view.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/02/a_personal_view.html Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:23:00 +0000 On the 22nd January Alex Ferguson wrote for The Weekly: The City is falling. New York is falling. The world is falling. Bankers everyone are running from their offices, with dosh in their pockets and fear in their minds about the next obstruction to financial growth (ie their bonuses): Barack Obama. Obama this week decided that the world needed cleaning up, and has decided to tell banks that they aren't going to able to operate businesses where their traders trade their own book, or be allowed to own private equity funds. The world gulped. Bank stocks fell nearly 10%. The hysteria started. Insurers were ecstatic that financial regulation doesn't seem to affect them - although we still can't believe that he didn't put forward the edict that no insurer was allowed to have a 'prop' trading arm or give out bonuses if it had been bailed out by the US government. "Never mind the bloody bonuses, now I can't even trade," moaned one trader, in between his game of Liar's Poker and glass of Krug. Reinsurance Towers told this trader to calm down. After all, we reasoned, what has Obama actually done in his year-or-so of office? He's done one thing: he's reduced his own popularity. People are beginning to use the word "emperor" and "new" and clothes" when they talk about Barack Obama. Don't get us wrong - we like a person who's desperate to do something and change the course of history. We loved the fact that he signed a decree to close Guantanamo Bay (hasn't happened yet), fought for health reform (hasn't happened yet - and now a Republican has won the 'safe' seat of Massachussetts (glad we splet that one correctli) - is unlikely to be anywhere near as good for the American people as it once was) and yelled at his security people over the near-fiasco of the Detroit plane bombing (can't wait for those see-through screen, Barack!). But really, the grade you can give him a "C-". Why? Because he's tried very hard, but done absolutely nothing. We love triers in the world. But we want a doer. Let's hope he gets something done. ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/the_sky_is_falling_in.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/the_sky_is_falling_in.html Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:00:36 +0000 On the 8th January Alexander Ferguson wrote in "The Weekly": After boring ourselves senseless talking about rates being flat or downward after the January 1/1 renewals, we thought that it would be high time to give our own predictions for this year - and 2011. You'll be pleased to hear we won't be making predictions about rates (we think they'll be down unless it's windy in the Gulf of Mexico in the late summer), capital markets (we can see a nice little bubble emerging around Cat bonds), AIG (Chartis will get floated, by the end of Q4), or the country's financial future (one word, which I can't mention in high-brow letter like this one!). Anyway.... 1. There will be a General Election in the UK, and millions of Britons will drag themselves to the voting booth to vote in a government who will undoubtedly let the country down over the next four or five years. Until we vote them in....again....and again...Then, in around 2025, our PM can leave his stable at 10 Downing Street, struck by the belief that the 'world needs him', and he needs to deliver a 'Sermon On The Mount' - at only £100,000 a session! We'll then feel ripped off, and he'll still declare that the public should pay for his travel. 2. The Company Named After a Nice Place to Ski will take over The Company Named After a Washing Powder (work it out!) in the first quarter of the year, leading to lots of nice noises about co-operation. People at the Washing Powder company are subsequently cleaned out (and paid very nicely for it), but the leadership makes enough to go ballroom dancing.....for the rest of his life. 3. Some will end the year getting himself paralytic into an ambulance outside a London Market bar, as we know happened to one unfortunate lawyer of a 'WAM' company in December, who may or may not have made it onto the local evening news for his actions by ending up in the 'drunk tent'. Old habits die young in the London Market. 4. 'WAM' will want to make 'another hit with somebody', and so we'll see the merry dance of M&A. We think we could see one of the major US domestic brokers being taken out. We want Hub, so it can be 'WHAM', but we doubt one of the big brokers would give us that sort of pleasure. 5. The Omega situation will get sorted out. We revealed this week that the powers that be wanted a compromise, but we didn't expect it to be of the "pistols at dawn" variety. See you on Jan 15th for that! Would-be chairman John Coldman is a good shot, by the way. 6. XL's resurrection will continue, making the company's comeback just a little less impressive than that of Jesus Christ. Speaking of Jesus Christ, we're off to church tomorrow to find out how many hurricanes there will be this year. We're thinking 17 named ones including a 'biblical' one that hammers Miami. 7. Which is better than we say for [add your hated rival company/underwriter/broker's name here], who had quite a bad 2009.... 8. Apparently, the world's going to end according to Munich Re, and Catlin. There's too much global warming. In London, this week, where temperatures are hovering around zero and in Georgia, USA, where it's snowing, we'd have to agree. I'll get my beach shorts! 9. You'll hear a lot about avoiding West Africa like the plague. Not a place for a holiday, apparently. Mind you, nor's Newark, New Jersey, or bad areas of London, Chicago, New York or LA. 10a ) Alabama and USC will play for the National Championship in 2011. Penn State won't. b) The Yankees will win their 28th World Series. Cubs fans will throw themselves off buildings after losing yet another League Championship Series. c) Indianapolis will win the Super Bowl, beating the Dallas Cowboys. I'll be jealous because I can't go. d) Queens Park Rangers won't get promoted to the Premiership/Premier League/Whatever You Call It Now. Ipswich will. And I'll have to pay a senior broker a tenner. e) Our editor believes that Liverpool will win the league. But then again, she says that every year - and has been disappointed since the (very) early 1990s! f) Chicago will win its first title since the Bulls in ice hockey g) Los Angeles will win yet another NBA Title.....and LeBron James will go and be a New York Knick. h) Brazil will win the World Cup. England will lose somewhere along the line in heartbreaking fashion Have a great year. http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/some_wild_and_whacky_predictio.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/some_wild_and_whacky_predictio.html Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:45:37 +0000 Reinsurance Towers before December even ended (they seem to arrive earlier every year) The reports seem to concur with what our readers predicted in the survey we conducted in November with rates down 5-15% for most lines. Those of you who participated in the survey can give yourselves a big pat on the back. I'm keeping myself busy with writing our own little renewals report for our Jan/Feb edition of the magazine (amongst other things) - keep an eye out for it if you are one of those people who just love statistics Have a good week P.s. If you want to be polled for any of our future surveys make sure you are signed up to our daily news alerts at http://signup.incisivemedia.com/insurance/ ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/happy_new_year.html http://www.blog-re.com/2010/01/happy_new_year.html Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:41:38 +0000 ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/here_come_the_girls.html http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/here_come_the_girls.html Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:55:37 +0000 Alex Ferguson wrote: This year's been an interesting one. We've managed to avoid a bloodbath in the stock markets - although we've heard enough about "God's Work" and investment bankers' bonuses to last us a lifetime. The reinsurance sector managed to avoid a windy season, although rates might not be wonderful at the start of the year (the latest we heard were flat to 5% down), the losses haven't incinerated balance sheets - something that we're thankful for. As for Reinsurance Towers, we've tried to educate you in the joys of Queens Park Rangers, Penn State, and all things college football, as well as trying to put a brake on the optimism and laugh at the words "green" and "shoots" and "recovery", but we've pity of banging the drum and clanging the cymbal. This week we're sticking strictly to our awards. We ask that you don't take them too seriously. Good year for: AIG. If we're honest, 2008 couldn't get any worse. In 2009, the share price came back (a bit), the CEO's position looks good (at the moment), and there's peace with former CEO Hank Greenberg. Oh, and the split-up of its two major businesses is going pretty well too. Bad year for: AIG staff. No bonuses for you this Christmas. And the revolving doors of the insurance world seem to be pretty solidly shut, too. Good year for: Cat bonds. Cat bonds are back, baby! We've seen a glut of them recently. Bad year for: Retro reinsurance: Apparently it's too expensive - especially with all that capital floating around. Good year for: The Lloyd's Exchange: It got the Reinsurance Reader Award for Innovator of the Year, didn't it? Oh, and it might be changing the way people broke and underwrite stuff too. Robots next! Bad year for: Cat bond exchanges. The highly-trumpeted ICAP-JLT cat bond exchange joint venture fell on its knees after only putting through about 50 trades. Ouch. Good year for: Lloyd's insurers: No US hurricane season and better investments meant that things have gone from "challenging" to "hopeful". Bad year for: Lloyd's brokers. The free-flowing capital has meant that brokers have had to cut fees and brokerage in an effort to snatch business from each other. Will there ever be a bottom to this? Good year for: Property. Rates might not be wonderful at the moment, but it hasn't been a bloodbath where losses are concerned. Which is a good thing. Bad year for: Casualty. When are we going to see rates actually go up? Good year for: AM Best. They didn't get pilloried like the other three ratings agencies over the sub-prime disaster. Bad year for: S&P, Moody's and Fitch With Warren Buffett dumping stock in Moody's, public opinion of the 'Big Three' being at an all-time low, and regulators wanting to remove any power that they have, it's not been a wonderful 2009 for ratings agencies. Good year for: Hurricanes. They all seemed to miss the USA Bad year for: Typhoons. Sadly, they didn't miss Asia. Good year for: Reinsurance. We gave out a ton of awards, broke a ton of stories, and tried to make you laugh during the Weekly. We'd like to think that we gave you an education on American sports, Queens Park Rangers (who play Middlesborough at home on Saturday, by the way), and our feelings on a New World Order. Bad year for: Armageddon. Didn't happen this year. Next year maybe? ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/2009_some_good_years_and_some.html http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/2009_some_good_years_and_some.html Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:23:45 +0000 Innovator of the year Winner - The Lloyd's Exchange Runner Up - Barrack Obama Broker of the year Winner - Guy Carpenter Runner Up - Aon Benfield Bermudian reinsurer of the year Winner - Partner Re Runner Up - Validus US reinsurer of the year Winner - Berkshire Hathaway Runner Up - Transatlantic Re European reinsurer of the year Winner - Scor Runner Up - a tie between Munich Re and Swiss Re Emerging markets player of the year Winner - Korean Re Runner up - Gulf Re Insurer of the year Winner - Allianz Runner Up - Zurich London market reinsurer of the year Winner - Catlin Runner Up - Hiscox Legal firm of the year Winner - Clyde & Co Runner Up - Lovell's Newcomer of the year Winner - Barbican Runner Up - Novae Re Reinsurance personality of the year Winner - Jim Bryce (IPC) Runner Up - Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) Person of achievement award Winner - Rolf Tolle (Lloyd's) Runner Up - Dennis Kessler (Scor) For more details and comments from the winners make sure you read your December copy of Reinsurance Have a good weekend. ]]> http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/the_reinsurance_reader_awards.html http://www.blog-re.com/2009/12/the_reinsurance_reader_awards.html Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:29:51 +0000