Out with the old? Most insurtech entrepreneurs aren’t veterans – they’re customers with an axe to grind Just as fintech is transforming the banking world, “insurtech” has set its sights on the insurance industry. There are firms like Trov, which provides insurance on-demand and enables consumers to catalogue insured belongings. Buzzmove uses home removals data […]

If the general public was asked ‘what does the insurance industry do’, it’s unlikely the answer would be; ‘it supports entrepreneurial innovation and endeavour ’. But that’s precisely what insurers do and the exponential growth of the sharing economy has provided an interesting challenge for insurers in this role. Sharing enablers such as AirBnB, RideLink […]

The number of completed mergers and acquisitions in the insurance sector has slumped in recent months, a report out today has found. The research by law firm Clyde & Co found that there were just 173 deals worldwide between October 2015 and March 2016, compared with 250 in the six months before that. The law […]

XL Group Plc, the insurer that expanded last year with the purchase of Catlin Group Ltd., said second-quarter catastrophe costs were probably about $240 million pretax, with wildfires in Alberta, Canada, responsible for about half the total. Flooding in Europe and earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador also contributed to the losses, the Dublin-based company said in […]

The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Towergate Underwriting Group Limited £2.63m for failings in relation to its protection of client and insurer money. Towergate, an insurance intermediary which holds both client and insurer money, accumulated a shortfall of £12.6m in those bank accounts which, due to systems and controls weaknesses, went undetected for a number […]

Some defined benefit pension schemes have seen a reduction in deficits since the vote to leave the EU, bucking an overall trend that has seen deficits soar as a result of plunging gilt yields, pensions consultant Xafinity has revealed. Following the 23 June EU referendum, which saw the UK vote for Brexit, gilt yields suffered […]

Chubb Ltd., the insurer led by Chief Executive Officer Evan Greenberg, said second-quarter catastrophes cost more than the company had planned. The pretax cost was about $390 million, led by events in North America, and compares with a previous internal projection of $280 million, the Zurich-based company said Tuesday in a statement. Chubb joins Bermuda-based Validus […]

UK life companies have pulled back so much from offering cover to expatriates that Britons living abroad can only get quotes from 16 per cent of the market. According to the latest expatriate insurance survey from specialist mortgage and insurance firm Unusual Risks, this is a marked reduction from 2015, when 33 per cent of […]

Annuity rates have fallen on average by 3.6 per cent since the UK voted to leave the European Union, leaving a 65-year-old buying an annuity today worse off than a 60-year-old buying one six months ago. Analysis from Hargreaves Lansdown found today a 65-year-old with £100,000 could buy an annual income of £4,890. That was […]

  Tinkering with things is in the nature of regulators. Inevitably, however, well-intentioned tinkering often delivers unintended consequences. Today, the unintended consequences of tinkering are emerging in London’s international specialty insurance market, notably following Solvency II, which specifies the amount of capital that insurance companies must hold to reduce the risk of insolvency. While the […]