Category Archives: Insurance

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IICF, Sesame Workshop Announce Reading Program

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Alan and Grover promote reading program. Photo by Caroline McDonald

 A program to promote daily reading for young children was announced today at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. Making an appearance to bring attention to the Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day program were the popular Elmo, Grover and Alan Sesame Street characters.

“Studies have shown that less than half of children between birth and five years old are read to every day by parents or caregivers,” William E. Ross, chief executive officer of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation said at the event. “So it’s not surprising that out of 50 children, 44 have reading problems when they enter the third grade.”

Even before starting school, children from high-income families have the advantage of 400 hours more of literacy-related activities than those from low-income families, according to the Sesame Workshop. By age four, a child from a high-income home is exposed to 35 million more words than a low-income child.

Ross noted that reading and writing skills set children up for success and that “The goal is for children to arrive at their classes with stronger skills.”

To help narrow the gap, the IICF and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit, educational program behind Sesame Street, have partnered to form an online bilingual—English and Spanish—digital resource center. The resource includes games and activities to encourage parents, families and caregivers to interact with young children and improve their reading and writing skills.

Sesame Street is promoting the program nationwide, also making appearances in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.

“We have a civic responsibility to support the development of youth,” Ross said, adding that the insurance industry is caring and philanthropic and has the available resources to focus on national issues.

The IICF, established in 1994, is directed and funded by the insurance industry. The organization said it has contributed more than $20 million in grants to charities and 166,000 volunteer hours to hundreds of nonprofit community programs.

Goals of Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day are to:

• Help parents and caregivers realize the importance of their role in creating the foundation for literacy in their children.

• Give volunteers engaging, fun-filled and educational resources to positively impact the literacy development of undeserved children across the United States.

• Provide children with games and activities to stimulate their interest in talking, reading, and writing from an early age.

 

Climate Change Report Causes Alarm

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New findings on climate change, establishing it as a manmade phenomenon, are garnering attention from the insurance industry, which recommends immediate action.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) newest report  “clarifies what businesses and investors already know, that climate change is happening now and human activity is the dominant reason why,” Mindy Lubber, president of CERES, a nonprofit organization that works with insurers and investors said recently on a conference call. “Climate change is disrupting all aspects of our global economy, including supply chains, commodity markets and the entire insurance industry, which is seeing exponentially large losses from extreme weather events.”

Lara Mowery, managing director, head of global property specialty practice with Guy Carpenter & Co., noted that the report should cause “significant concern” and impact how insurers and reinsurers shape their business going forward.

Insurers’ and reinsurers’ business plans “depend critically on understanding and assessing risk, which is likely to become even more challenging as weather variability increases,” she said. Identifying and understanding the causes and consequences of climate change is essential to “implementing workable risk management solutions.”

Global cat losses are increasing, she explained. In the 1980s, “the rolling 10-year annual average for the worldwide cat loss was less than $10 billion. In the last few years that average has jumped up to more than $50 billion average, based on that 10-year rolling time frame.” In addition, 2005, 2011 and 2012 represent the top three insured cat loss years on record, she noted.

Given the IPCC’s conclusion on flood, drought and changing weather patterns and evidence of this over the past 50 years, the industry needs to evaluate how these changes could impact future losses. As an example, she said, the most widespread hazard of global warming is coastal flooding. Impact of events such as Superstorm Sandy, which produced devastating storm surge, could have even worse consequences if sea levels continue to rise. “Insurers and reinsurers must continually assess the most up to date research and adjust their business plans according to increases in calculated loss.”

While this has meant more insurer capital is at risk, “that can’t be the only response, the only solution and the only answer. We can’t just keep putting more money in the path of what’s happening,” Mowery said.

She emphasized that the industry and insurance buyers can be taking steps now to address the risks.

A recent example of innovation in this area is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) $200 million catastrophe bond that was issued in July, “the first of its kind to cover storm surge specifically,” she explained. The MTA commented in the aftermath of Sandy that their traditional avenues for insurance and reinsurance “constricted dramatically,” making it more difficult for them to obtain the kind of risk transfer they needed.

She also pointed out that “We can’t continue to let human and economic costs escalate. Building codes and standards and land use strategies are accepted adaptation measures to improve resilience against flood, wind and fire impacts that may worsen under global warming.”

Insurers Discuss State of the Industry at FERMA Forum

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On Monday, FERMA presented a risk manager panel focused on buyer concerns and the need for improvement in the insurance industry.

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While the panelists gave the insurers above average marks, there were still several areas of concern. This morning executives from Lloyd’s, XL Group, Zurich, AIG and Allianz were given an opportunity to respond.

One of the concerns expressed by risk managers in Monday’s panel was the seeming inability of insurers to adapt and evolve in order to meet their clients’ needs. Mike McGavick, CEO of XL Group, agreed with their concern. “Our record of innovation in this industry is poor,” he said. “If we aren’t thinking anew about this rapidly changing world of risk, we will miss the boat, we will not move society forward, and you will find other ways to solve problems.”

“We have a lot to do on process innovation to make this industry more efficient,” added Thomas Hurlimann, CEO, global corporate of Zurich Insurance Company.

Another concern raised with the insurers was the perception that they are unwilling to pay claims. The insurers again saw this as a valid criticism.

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“I looked at the scores from the session yesterday, 5/10 for willingness to pay claims, and that’s all your buying here, actually, the promise to pay,” said Dr. Richard Ward, CEO of Lloyd’s. “Surely we can do better than that.”

Axel Theis, CEO of Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty, agreed. “In the past we haven’t given claims the platform that we should have.”

Part of the difficulty in getting claims paid has been attributed to the complex language used in policies. This issue was addressed by the morning’s panelists as well. Peter Hancock, executive vice president and CEO of AIG acknowledged that policy language was an issue.

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“Policy certainty and wording is clearly a long term objective, and I think the London market’s done a terrific job of eliminating ambiguity, but the U.S. has a long way to go to match that.”

McGavick took a different approach. “Because claims rise in unexpected ways, they don’t always fit neatly with what was discussed. As a result we have to work through it.” He went on to advise risk managers to “choose your insurer in part based on their attitude toward claims as opposed to the expectation that there will never be a conflict.”

This was the second panel in a three-part series presented at the FERMA Forum in Maastricht, Netherlands. The broker panel was held Tuesday afternoon.

FSB Suggests More Federal Oversight of U.S. Insurance System

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On August 27, 2013, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) released an interim update on the progress the United States has made in implementing recommendations made during its 2010 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP).

While the FSB does acknowledge that the United States has taken steps toward meeting recommendations through creation of the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), modernizing of solvency requirements, and increased coordination between U.S. state regulators and federal authorities, it concludes that “significant work is required to fully address the FSAP recommendations” in the area of insurance.

In a press release the FSB states that, “The architecture for insurance supervision in the U.S., characterized by the multiplicity of state regulators, the absence of federal regulatory powers to promote greater regulatory uniformity and the limited rights to pre-empt state law, constrains the ability of the U.S. to ensure regulatory uniformity in the insurance sector.”

Based on its perceived “drawbacks of the current regulatory set-up,” the FSB laid out several recommendations to enhance the U.S. insurance system: (1) further strengthening of the FIO; (2) further enhancement of insurance group supervision by establishing requirements for consolidated financial reporting for all insurance groups and by giving supervisors additional authority to fully assess the entire insurance group’s financial condition; and (3) implementation of FSAP recommendations concerning terms of state insurance commissioner appointments, rule-making powers of state insurance departments, and funding and staffing of insurance departments in order to strengthen specialist skills.

The FSB’s recommendations have been met with pushback from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). In a June 27, 2013 letter in response to an earlier draft of the FSB’s recommendations, the NAIC argued the report “focuses almost exclusively on the perceived cost of having a state-based system, but spends no time examining the benefits of this approach.” The letter goes on to argue that state commissioners are able to “act more quickly and in closer proximity to consumers,” which has led to an industry that is “competitive, profitable, solvent” while consumers “benefit from choice, security, and a local regulatory response that is second to none.”

Ben Nelson, Chief Executive Officer of the NAIC, went further in a September 17 interview with Bloomberg: “There is, I think, a philosophical difference about government here. We come from the Jeffersonian idea of the states.

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” He went on to say that “there is value in regulation that is closest to the people, because New York is different than Nebraska.

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”

The Financial Stability Board was established to coordinate the work of national financial authorities and international standard setting bodies at the international level. FSAP evaluations are conducted every five years and look at how a country’s financial sector compare to accepted regulatory international standards. For insurance, the study is based on the Insurance Core Principles (ICPs) developed by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS). Recommendations from the FSB are advisory only and each country decides if and how to implement them.

This report was prepared by representatives from Deutche Bundesbank, Swiss National Bank, Japan Financial Services Agency, European Commission, European Systemic Risk Board Secretariat, Bank of Canada and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India. The FSB secretariat also provided support and contributed to the preparation of the report.

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