Tuesday 12 October: What happened on day 2?
Watch below a short video of the highlights from Monday and Tuesday:
Tuesday morning: Interview with Risk Managers, giving their View on the Insurance Market & CEO Panel on the Insurance Market post Covid-19
Mario Ramirez Ortuzar said companies are currently competing against each other for a limited supply of insurance cover which is language, senior management is likely to understand. It opens the door for the risk manager to have a better discussion, compared to a quick conversation about renewals.
Risk managers also want to see more tailor made solutions. Carlo Cosimi called for more tailor made solutions for risks like reputation and cyber that could not be tied to standard wordings.
For their part the insurers accepted some criticisms about practices but largely defended the tough market with little comment on how it affected customers. Henning Haagen said insurers see the importance of being reliable for the client but also to be stable in terms of the returns for our shareholders because the industry wasn’t really making money. “We have to be able to set prices that will generate returns to attract capital to cover risks.”
Watch below the full replay of Tuesday morning:
Paul Knowles said the insurance industry still had some fundamental problems to solve. Customers who were now used to ordering online and getting next day delivery were not impressed with waiting three months for insurance documentation. “If we get the basic right, then we will have time for biggest questions like ESG. If we don’t provide support, customers will not wait for long.” The question of contract certainty is not new and one that FERMA championed especially in the period of Peter den Dekker’s presidency.
Carlo Cosimi and Mario Ramirez Ortuzar were very critical of insurers’ lack of acknowledgement of their companies’ work on sustainability. Ramirez Ortuzar said this could hamper the ability of hydrocarbon companies like his to make their transitions to more sustainable products, because of the higher costs.
Tuesday afternoon: Face to face Interview with EIOPA’s Executive Director Fausto Parente and Panel on ”How can Organisations build Financial Resilience to Disruptions?”
Fausto Parente said that the Solvency II framework had worked well during the pandemic, although EIOPA wanted insurers to suspend dividend payments temporarily while they assess the extent of the crisis. “The sector remained stable.”
From a regulatory perspective, Fausto Parente also noted the accumulation issue, especially in relation to non-affirmative cyber and EIOPA, is introducing cyber into stress testing for insurers. EIOPA is collecting data on cyber incidents which he said was key step needed to allow standardisation.
Watch below the full replay of Tuesday afternoon:
Alfred Sant very strongly supported Europe-wide resilience initiative to cover business interruption which he sees as major gap in resilience provision, because the threats don’t stop at borders. He suggested three ways EU would be involved: data collection and provision, support for risk transfer mechanisms and partnership. “Shared resilience is the solution needed for Europe.”
Oliver Wild reported that 90% of AMRAE members had seen not only increases in premium but also reductions in capacity, and carriers were withdrawing from certain risks which made them very difficult to cover. He did not believe insurers distinguished sufficiently between the risk management maturity levels of their corporate clients.