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Reinsurance companies, which sell backup protection to insurers, charged about 5% to 10% less as they negotiated new catastrophe coverage that kicked in on Jan. 1, according to brokers who arrange the coverage.
The price decline from a year earlier came despite a flurry of natural disasters in the first half of 2010. The roster of catastrophes included earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and a massive windstorm in Europe. Catastrophes are often the trigger for reinsurance price increases.
The June-to-November hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean means the second half of the year is normally more costly for the insurance industry. But the deadly storms stayed away from U.S. shores in 2010. Reports from the leading reinsurance brokers point to the absence of hurricanes in the U.S. as one reason for the pricing declines for the Jan. 1 renewals. The majority of primary insurers lock in their protection against large losses for the coming year by Jan.
This is of course good news for insurance buyers in the near-term. But for insurers?
Not so much, particularly when it comes to the casualty lines.
It typically takes years before the claims from such policies become clear, but analysts have increasingly said that both reinsurers and primary insurers are likely charging too little for the coverage.
Reinsurance pricing for the Jan. 1 renewals “lacked the increases necessary for long-term health” of reinsurance companies, said Brian Boornazian, the head of reinsurance operations for Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. (AHL).
“The much-needed improvement in rates remains elusive,” Boornazian said on a conference call
With Guy Carpenter estimating some $19 billion in excess capital for reinsurers currently and no immediate signs of the primary market increasing demand, this doesn’t seem likely to change in the immediate future.
Each year, the Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting company, releases its list of the top risks for the upcoming year. Generally, atop the rankings are a lot of unstable nations ripe for collapse or regional disruption. (Think places like Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and Venezuela in recent years.)
This year, however, only one rogue nation cracks the top five (North Korea). Instead, global macro-shifts and emerging, nontraditional global conflicts are viewed as the largest threats.
The concept of the “G-Zero” presents a world devoid of global leadership. Ever since American primacy has dwindled on the international scale, most thinkers have looked at a few likely realities for the coming decades: (1) the United States re-establishing itself as the dominating global power, (2) the start of a “Chinese Century,” (3) the “Rise of the Rest” in which multiple emerging economies (China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.) become the most important political force or (4) the coordinated rise of international cooperation via bodies like the G-20.
Another scenario, the G-Zero, seems increasingly likely to the Eurasia Group and its head Ian Bremmer. And with no apparent global leadership, conflict rooted in nations increasingly operating for their own self interest will emerge.
the default policy response to a breakdown in global economic governance is every man/nation for himself. As demonstrated even in a politically integrated Europe, without common rules, there’s no such thing as collective economic security. In the G-Zero, domestic constituencies will become increasingly effective in pushing populist agendas on trade, currency, and fiscal policy. However much economic dispositions become ideologically statist, in the absence of agreed global norms, economic agendas are overwhelmingly resolved at the national level
On a conference call about this list today, Bremmer mentioned that this new reality was probably coming anyway due to various factors but has been delayed by the cooperative sentiments and two years of panic following the meltdown of the global financial system. Obviously, the fallout of that is far from over, but the panic has at least subsided.
Thus, enter the G-Zero — probably this year, they say.
2. Eurozone Economics
With the debt and fiscal concerns still mounting throughout the Eurozone, the next year may see increasing tension between the struggling economies (specifically, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain) and those tasked with bailing them out (namely, Germany and France). Obviously, populist sentiments in Germany and France are making it harder and harder for Berlin and Paris to continue helping out other countries. Given this, the Eurasia Group sees a future of “bailouts with conditionality” that aren’t altogether appealing for either party, much like those adopted by the IMF and World Bank while loaning “strings attached” money to South American and African nations throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In the meantime, real Eurozone reform remains difficult and far away. And the resulting uncertainty will make the market and investors increasingly leery of the region in the coming year.
3. Cybersecurity and Geopolitics
Despite Time magazine’s assertion that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was the man of the year, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange kicked a much bigger hornet’s nest last year. Now, information anarchists of his ilk will make more disruptions for nations that have their secret information exposed. (Companies, too … tread lightly.)
More importantly, cyberwarfare in which states attack states has become a reality. We have seen it in Iran, from China and (probably) from Russia. We will likely see it more in 2011.
4. An Unresponsive China
With China’s economy and exports still booming even amid sluggish global consumption, Eurasia Group believes that Western nations will implore Beijing to adjust its growth model to one that better dovetails with the policies of the world’s other leading economies. This is what is referred to as “global rebalancing.” China, in theory, agrees with the need to do this — not just to integrate with the rest of the G-20, but for its own self-interest. Long-term, its export-driven economy just isn’t sustainable, and it knows this.
But it is very unlikely that Beijing’s rebalancing schedule will come as quickly as other nations want it to. And this may cause great contention.
China will talk of participating in global coordination, but they will not follow through.
China’s pattern of export growth that is twice the rate of economic growth, with resulting large current account surpluses, will be the object of intensified international outcry as the world’s second largest exporter in a demand-constrained world economy. In 2010, the gloves started to come off between the United States and China. The trend broadens this year with Europe, japan, and much of the emerging markets and the developing economies also looking to China to adjust its growth model …
frustration with and pressure on China will build. So too will the risks of market-moving international reactions to China’s incremental, deliberate, consensus-driven approach.
Much has been made about how China will disrupt the “old world order” in the next few decades. For the next 12 months, however, Bremmer and company see this as the largest factor that may cause market disruption.
5. North Korea
Kim Jong Il was — and is — utterly nuts. So him beginning to transfer power to his son is, in a way, a good thing. How can anyone possibly be as certifiably insane as that guy?
But the transition also might prove to be a major destabilizing force on the Korean peninsula. And that could be disastrous for South Korea, the region and the international community.
North Korea’s decision to keep pushing the South Koreans’ buttons is almost certainly the result of a faster-than-expected leadership transition in Pyongyang. That’s the only variable that could explain the sudden dramatic change in behavior. The belligerence could be coming from external concerns—that Kim Jong Un will be vulnerable to international “testing” if Pyongyang doesn’t first prove his mettle. Or it could be internal if Kim Jong Il doesn’t believe he can win agreement within the North Korean leadership for his son’s safe accession, especially in the event that the father dies suddenly. The latter scenario is much more troubling in terms of North Korea’s willingness to provoke military conflict on the peninsula. There’s no way of knowing which of the two is the more likely.
On today’s conference call, Bremmer added that war on the peninsula is indeed a possibility and that, in fact, it is “probably the only place in the world that large-scale conventional warfare is possible.”
We talk a lot about reputation risk around this parts. A tarnished brand has increasingly been identified as a leading threat and as BP and Toyota have seen, it can have long-lasting drawbacks to the company.
At this point, most have come to realize the importance of reputation and brand recognition. So while this isn’t really about risk management or protecting the brand, I thought this Freakonomics post about how pharmaceuticals strategically create brand names for their drugs that include the letters X and Z would interest you.
“Reflecting their infrequent occurrence in English words, x and z count for 8 and 10 points in Scrabble, the highest values (along with j and q) in the game. So names that contain them are likely to seem special and be memorable. ‘If you meet them in running text, they stand out,’ is the way one industry insider explained.” The trend, however, is relatively recent, which Stepney attributes to a couple factors. “I suggest that this phenomenon arose because of the fast rate at which new products were being introduced, the fact that the difference between many “me too” drugs was more apparent than real, the immense rewards that were seen to accrue from innovative marketing, and the fact that the ploys available for use in the naming of drugs are so restricted.”
