Douglas Shillito
This week, life and pensions results were buoyant. Firstly, Prudential revealed impressive results under new chief Mike Wells, with the only blot a rise in retail net outflows from its M&G investment arm. Aviva also produced strong 2015 financials, as the Friends Life merger of operations and associated savings were well ahead of schedule. On the general insurance side, Aviva also registered its lowest combined ratio in nine years.
Just Retirement showed good growth ahead of its merger next month with Partnership Assurance, and Old Mutual, reporting improved results, announced it is to restructure and separate its four profitable businesses by 2018. Esure followed the trend of positive results set by Direct Line and Admiral last week. Hannover Re reported its fourth consecutive record year, and AIG finalised a reinsurance arrangement with Swiss Re relating to its US casualty business.
On the regulatory front, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched the Senior Managers Regime for insurers and bankers, and the European Parliament approved the appointment of Fausto Parente as EIOPA's new Executive Director. The RIMES annual survey warned that asset managers needed to take a new approach to data management and governance, emphasizing the new Solvency II requirements.
Beazley produced its Breach Insight report indicating that cyber breaches though either hacking or malware almost doubled last year. The London Market Group (LMG) announced that, following a meeting of the Target Operating Model (TOM) Steering Board, an Innovation Forum is to be formed, and that the PPL placing platform had entered the Market Acceptance Testing phase. Meanwhile, ex-AIG executive John Doyle was appointed president at Marsh. Allianz appointed Jackie Hunt and Gunther Thallinger to its Board. Berkshire Hathaway announced the appointment of Tom Bolt, performance management director at Lloyd's, as president of UK and Southern Europe for its booming specialty division, with Gregor Koehler as president of Northern Europe.
Full articles on the above topics may be found on the Insurance Newslink and Financial Newslink global trends database services at www.onlystrategic.com.