Douglas Shillito
This week, the latest Willis Towers Watson / Mergermarket report revealed that deal value for global insurance M&A was up €37bn in the first six months of 2018. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) set out the issues it will focus on as part of a market study into how general insurance firms charge their customers for home and motor insurance, whilst later in the week, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reported it had investigated clauses used by the ComparetheMarket comparison site in its contracts which stop home insurers from quoting lower prices on rival sites and other channels. The FCA, in a busy week, also reported that complaints continue to increase for the fourth successive half year, and it fined Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe £5,280,800 for failures in its oversight of its mobile phone insurance claims and complaints handling processes administered through a third party.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) commenting on The Budget was relieved that there was no increase in Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) and no changes to pensions tax relief, and welcomed £5m new funding for the Pensions Dashboard. Insurance Europe responded to the EIOPA discussion paper on resolution funding and national insurance guarantee schemes saying that the effect of Solvency II needs to be better understood. The chief executive of the London and International Insurance Brokers Association (LIIBA), Christopher Croft, told insurance brokers that the key challenge facing them post-Brexit remains the uncertainty around the proposed models for brokers to maintain access to London for European risks.
AdvantageGo, the commercial insurance and reinsurance product family from NIIT Technologies, launched Exact Max, its powerful exposure management solution. RMS announced the release of its US Inland Flood High Definition(HD) model, and also reported the development of a list of ten ‘one in 100 year’ catastrophes that could hit the Asia Pacific region. “Hacksagon!” developed by Chubb’s European cyber team won an award, and Slice Labs and AXA XL launched a new cyber insurance policy specifically designed for small and midsize businesses. Argentina insurer LA SEGUNDA selected Guidewire solutions.
RenaissanceRe is to acquire Tokio Millennium Re, and BGC Partners announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire high profile Ed Broking Group. Ardonagh launched a mirror notes offering to finance the Swinton purchase and for other corporate purposes, announced further acquisitions, and is to sell its Commercial MGA businesses to Arch UK. SCOR was named “General Reinsurer of the Year” by Asia Insurance Review at its Asia Insurance Industry Awards. There was a senior appointment at AIG.
Further third quarter and nine months financials were released, including AIG, Great-West Lifeco, Liberty Mutual, Ping An, The Hanover, Arch Capital, Everest Re, Lancashire Holdings, Markel, RenaissanceRe, Swiss Re and Willis Towers Watson.
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