Clyde & Co research showed that insurance M&A activity worldwide had continued its downward trend in the first half of 2017. Beazley released its Breach Insights findings for the first six months based on client data, and Standard & Poor's said in a new report that the global life reinsurance sector's operating conditions look promising.

The pace of announcements by UK insurers and brokers of new domiciles within the European Union for their post-Brexit operations has quickened in the last few months. Many are talking down the extent of the operations and staff who will have to move to service the business of EU clients. The regulators have other ideas.

Assets invested in illiquid credit more than doubled in 2016 from $178bn to $360bn, according to a survey by investment consultancy Willis Towers Watson.

This week, the Financial Conduct Authority published proposals to extend the Senior Managers and Certification Regime to almost all regulated firms which will impact insurers.

Under the terms of the code, which the market authority revised in May, life insurers, asset management companies and trust banks have been asked to publicise specific votes they cast at shareholders’ meetings, or otherwise explain the decision to not disclose their actions.

In the wake of the ground-breaking agreement at the end of the Paris Summit in December 2015 – the 21st Session of the Conference of Parties (COP21) – the role of insurers as investors in renewable energy and a range of green initiatives was high on the post-summit agenda.