PB Week: Catlin talks of "market turning events"
Insurers are still counting the losses from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav , writes Andrew Tjaardstra, editor, Professional Broking , the management magazine for insurance brokers.
Amlin has said it expects the market insured loss from Hurricane Ike alone to be in excess of £9.4bn "due to the impact of the storm both on offshore energy installations and on the mainland." Lloyd’s expects to see net claims of £1.3bn for Ike and Gustav.
Meanwhile, adding to insurers’ difficulties is the plunging stock markets amid global fears of a recession. For its third quarter, Ace reported $1.5bn of net realised and unrealised losses from its fixed income and equities portfolio. Although some of this loss could be replenished if stock markets return to health. Ace says it has a strong balance sheet and is well placed going forward.
With the impact of the storms increasing and investment income collapsing, could this again be another sign pointing to a hard market? Indeed Stephen Catlin, chief executive of the Catlin Group, thinks so: "The unprecedented events of this year, including the instability in international financial markets, have presented the group with both challenges and opportunities. We believe that these are market turning events. We expect an improved rating environment created by the removal of significant capital from the marketplace."
PB Management Event
Thank you to all the brokers, sponsors, exhibitors and speakers who attended the PB Management Events this year at Weston-super-Mare, Bolton, Harrogate and London. It is great to see regional broking is alive and well and we look forward to announcing our plans for next year. Also thank you for your feedback, participating in the interactive voting and asking our panel some testing questions. See November’s edition of the magazine for some pictures and coverage.
Subscriptions
Please remember that your subscription to Professional Broking does not renew itself and this should be done every year. So if in doubt, subscribe here or call our subscriptions team on 0845 155 1846. Remember, it is free to broker managers, but anybody in the industry can subscribe for £75 a year (Europe: £100; rest of world, £130) – you can always encourage your local insurer account manager to subscribe!
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