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Disaster Losses Climb as Protection Gap Widens: Swiss Re Sigma Study

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Global Economic losses from disaster events almost doubled in 2016 to $175 billion from $94 billion in 2015, according to the most recent Sigma Study from the Swiss Re Institute.

Insured losses also rose steeply to $54 billion in 2016 from $38 billion in 2015, the study found. This led to a “protection gap,” as the company calls it, of some $121 billion, the difference between economic and insured losses, a figure highly indicative of the opportunity for greater insurance penetration, according to Swiss Re. “The shortfall in insurance relative to total economic losses from all disaster events…indicates the large opportunity for insurance to help strengthen worldwide resilience against disaster events,” said the report. The gap was $56 billion in 2015.

Total economic and insured losses in 2015 and 2016:

The two headline loss figures are the highest since 2012 and end a four-year decline as the year saw a higher amount of significant disaster events including earthquakes, storms, floods and wildfires worldwide. The report noted that some events hit areas with high insurance penetration, leading to the 42% jump in insured losses.

Despite the precipitous rise in both economic and insured losses, human losses plummeted to approximately 11,000 lost or missing in 2016, down from more than 26,000 in 2015.

Of the 327 disaster events last year, 191 were natural disasters while 136 were man-made. Regionally, Asia experienced the most disaster events with 128 leading to approximately $60 billion in economic losses. Asia also had the single most costly disaster event of 2016 as the April earthquake on Kyushu Island, Japan caused an estimated $25 billion-$30 billion in economic losses.

Insured losses of $54 billion almost equaled the $53 million inflation-adjusted annual average of the past 10 years, said the report, despite being 42% higher than 2015’s $38 billion. Natural catastrophes accounted for $46 billion of insured losses, equal to the 10-year annual average, as man-made disasters led to $8 billion of insured losses, according to the report.

“In 2016, both economic and insured losses were close to their 10-year averages.
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Insured losses made up about 30% of total losses, with some areas faring much better because of higher insurance penetration,” Kurt Karl, Swiss Re’s chief economist said in a statement.

More than half of insured losses occurred in North America as a record number of severe convective storm events hit the region. These included an April hail storm in Texas, which caused $3.5 billion in economic loss and $3 billion in insured loss as some 86% of losses were covered. An August system brought severe storms and flooding to Louisiana, causing $10 billion in economic loss and $3.1 billion in insured loss.

The region saw several major disaster events.

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In May and June, wildfires in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada caused $4 billion in economic losses and $2.8 billion in insured losses, Canada’s largest-ever insurance loss. The fire consumed 590,000 hectares of land and caused the evacuation of about 88,000 people. In October, hurricane Matthew, the first Category 5 storm in the North Atlantic since 2007, led to $12 billion in economic losses and $4 billion in insured losses while also, sadly, causing the greatest loss of life as 700 were lost, mainly in Haiti.

Flooding across Europe and China was also devastating at times. In May and June, severe rain and floods hit Belgium, France and parts of Germany, causing economic losses of .

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9 billion and insured losses of .

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9 billion. Flooding along China’s Yangtze River basin caused an estimated $22 billion in economic losses but low insurance penetration, in contrast to Europe, led to insured losses of just $400 million, according to the report.

Accounts Receivables Coverage Helps Fill Supply Chain Gaps

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It is standard for companies to insure and protect cash, inventory, property, plants and equipment, and more recently, data. Companies are insuring every step in the supply chain and sales process from concept to delivery. What is often not insured, however, is the last but most important part of a sales transaction—getting paid. You can safely bring your product to market, but if a partner or customer defaults on payment and you have no recourse, you’ve lost your total investment. Your balance sheet takes the hit.

As with most risks, there is insurance for that, too. Accounts receivable insurance protects what is often a company’s most critical asset on the balance sheet. More than just protection from non-payment, accounts receivable insurance puts companies in a stronger position to secure loans with improved credit quality. With accounts receivable Insurance acting as a second source of repayment, a company can assure a lender it will not have covenant issues if there is default by a customer.

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Consider these hypothetical scenarios: Bob’s company is based in Canada and he sells components to computer chip manufacturers throughout North America. He buys parts from foreign markets to make his product. The company that supplies Bob with parts has been working with Bob for 30 years. Bob has always paid them for their deliveries. Recently, Bob has struggled to receive payment from his customers in North America due to their decline in computer chip sales.

As a result, Bob is now finding it difficult to pay his supplier on time. The supplier believed Bob had risk management protections in place and would always pay them for their delivery. They never thought Bob would go bankrupt. Fortunately for both Bob and his supplier, he has accounts receivable Insurance. Even though he was exposed to the risk of his customers not paying, his accounts receivable Insurance kicked in as a second source of repayment.

Here is another example regarding the uncertainty of political events in a global economy and how they can impact a company’s balance sheet. A U.S. exporter is selling to Latin America and there are a few countries within the region that are approaching elections. A regime change could mean changes in policies, resulting in the possible cancellation of an import or export license, a moratorium on the payment of any external debts outside the country, or the inability to convert local currency to hard exchangeable currency to make payment. With an accounts receivable program protecting assets, the exporter is able to securely transact with their customers in a foreign market, knowing they’ve mitigated the risk of non-payment due to any potential policy changes or actions.

These examples are not hard to imagine. What is startling to see are estimates that only 8% of U.S. companies have accounts receivable insurance compared with 70% of European companies. In Europe, boards mandate this coverage.

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This underscores the differences between regional risk perceptions. Perhaps there is a greater recognition of the account receivable risks for companies operating in multiple countries, including developing nations with a high degree of political instability.

With the new U.S. administration, Brexit and other unpredictable market forces in play, it is certain that we will be seeing shifts in the global economy. Undoubtedly, there will be bumps along the supply chain as well, and companies will face challenges, including non-payment.

These bumps are not only for the largest global organizations, however. Middle-market companies will face a new competitive landscape, with a push to focus manufacturing in the U.S., and changes to the flow of their supply chain. This will impact costs and the need for extra working capital. Accounts receivable insurance should be viewed as a tool to bolster the balance sheet to provide the liquidity needed to advance business goals.

Accounts receivable coverage provides a competitive edge by giving suppliers the ability to extend credit to their customers as opposed to requiring payment in advance or on delivery. It can be helpful in lengthening payment terms with customers to match or exceed the competition and allows for these aggressive growth strategies without taking additional balance sheet risk. Accounts receivable insurance also can help a company obtain a higher advance rate with lenders that use accounts receivables as collateral. This will provide increased liquidity without having to increase the asset base and can help in negotiating lower borrowing rates.

Supply chain risks are currently taking center stage as one of our greatest concerns. Don’t forget to protect the ultimate objective in the sales process—collecting payment.

Sears Suppliers Wary as Shares Plummet

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Sears Holding Corps’ “going concern” filing has vendors and their insurers running for cover as the venerable American department store appears heading for bankruptcy or some other final disposition.

In a filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Sears Holding Corp.

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told investors and observers that, “substantial doubt exists related to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” The company is parent to Sears stores and sister retailer Kmart.

The filing sent Sears shares down as much as 16% to $7.60 in New York trading, the company’s biggest intraday drop since October 2014. Prior to the drop, shares had gained some 60% since Feb. 9, according to Bloomberg.

As a result, Sears’ suppliers are changing business terms with the troubled retailer, in some cases cutting back inventory or insisting on faster payment terms, in order to mitigate the downside associated with doing business with Sears.

One such supplier, a textile maker in Bangladesh, has sharply cut back on the amount of goods it manufactures for Sears. “We have to protect ourselves from the risk of nonpayment,” the textile maker’s managing director told Reuters. “So far there was only speculation that they would declare bankruptcy in 2017. But now they are acknowledging it, which definitely complicates our relationship with them and our decision to accept future orders from Sears.”

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Noel Hebert noted, “They’ve got all kinds of issues.” Sears has enough cash to get through 2017, he said, but its declining payables-to-inventory ratio shows that vendors have been increasingly reluctant to keep the retailer stocked.

Although Sears posted a smaller loss than expected in the fourth quarter, the company has lost some $10 billion over the past few years, according to Bloomberg.

“Whatever vendors continue to support them are now going to put them on even more of a short string. That means they’ll ship them smaller quantities and demand payment either in advance or immediately upon delivery,” Mark Cohen, the former chief executive of Sears Canada and director of retail studies at Columbia Business School in New York City, said in the Reuters piece.

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“Sears stores are pathetically badly inventoried today and they will become worse.”

Insurers that supply coverage against the nonpayment of goods are also looking to limit their exposure to what appears to be a worsening situation by backing away from business with Sears as it sinks.

“We tried to hang in as long as we could,” said Doug Collins, regional director for risk services at Atradius Trade Credit Insurance, who added that his firm has stopped providing insurance to Sears’ vendors. “Vendors may try to get a few more cycles in before the worst happens, and then it just depends if they’re lucky or not,” he said.

The situation is complicated by the personal involvement of billionaire owner Edward Lampert, who has poured hundreds of millions into Sears from his other business interests, using some of Sears’ assets as guarantees against the loans. This has resulted in a complex, even byzantine ownership structure which may complicate or preclude assets sales which could generate cash, according to some observers.

Sears’ cash position has crashed to just $286 million at the end of 2016 from a high of $1.7 billion in 2009, according to the Street.

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com, which added that the company hasn’t generated cash flow from its operations since 2006. “With negative news like this, it’s never good for confidence on the company,” Moody’s vice president, Christina Boni said. Earlier this year, Moody’s downgraded Sears’ credit rating to Caa2 from Caa1 to reflect the accelerating negative sales performance of its business and risk of possible default.

Software May Help Oil Companies Determine a Location’s Earthquake Potential

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New software for monitoring the probability of earthquakes in a targeted location could help energy companies determine where they can operate safely.

The free tool, developed by Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, helps operators estimate how much pressure nearby faults can handle before rupturing, by combining three important pieces of information:

  • Location and geometry of the fault
  • Natural stresses in the ground
  • Pressure changes likely to be brought on by injections

“Faults are everywhere in the Earth’s crust, so you can’t avoid them. Fortunately, the majority of them are not active and pose no hazard to the public. The trick is to identify which faults are likely to be problematic, and that’s what our tool does,” said Mark Zoback, professor of geophysics at Stanford, who developed the approach with graduate student Rail Walsh.

Fossil fuel exploration companies have been linked to the increased number of earthquakes in some areas—Oklahoma in particular—that have been determined to be the result of fracking. According to the Dallas Morning News:

Only around 10% of wastewater wells in the central and eastern United States have been linked with earthquakes. But that small share, scientists believe, helped kick-start the most dramatic earthquake surge in modern history.

From 2000 — before the start of America’s recent energy boom — to 2015, Oklahoma saw its earthquake rate jump from two per year to 4,000 per year. In 2016, its overall number fell to 2,500, but its quakes grew stronger.

Five other states, including Texas, Arkansas and Kansas, have seen unprecedented increases in ground shaking tied to the wells, although North Texas had no earthquakes strong enough to be felt last year.

The insurance industry has also been monitoring the rise in temblors. A Swiss Re report concluded, “It’s highly likely that this dramatic rise in earthquake occurrence is largely a consequence of human actions.”

According to the report:

Along with the increase in seismicity, Oklahoma has seen a growth in its oil and natural gas operations since 2008, specifically hydraulic fracturing (often referred to as “hydrofracking” or “fracking”) and the disposal of wastewater via deep well injection. Both hydrofracking and deep well injection involve pumping high-pressure fluids into the ground. A consensus of scientific opinion now links these practices to observed increases in seismic activity. Earthquakes where the cause can be linked to human actions are termed ‘induced earthquakes,’ and present an emerging risk of which the insurance industry is taking note.