Welcome to APCIA Today
To overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19, the APCIA Annual Meeting is going ahead this week as a virtual event.
With an agenda titled “Defining our Future” the event will deliver a packed agenda of keynote speakers and panel discussions comprising senior industry leaders across two days: Monday October 12 and Tuesday October 13.
As such, we are publishing our annual conference newsletter, APCIA Today, also in a virtual format.
We have again conducted interviews with senior executives ahead of the meeting, and we will attend the virtual events and ensure our
readers have their fingers on the pulse of the industry at this critical and unprecedented time.
We hope you find the content in the following pages as useful and insightful as you have always done.
We miss seeing the industry face to face but we will still do what we have always done: report on the most important events, news stories, opinions and debates to keep our readers informed and ahead of the game as they make decisions
Wyn Jenkins, managing editor, Intelligent Insurer
A sneak preview: more exclusive content and interviews inside
Insurers are playing a key role in the response to COVID-19 and can be part of the solution to future pandemics
The insurance industry is navigating unprecedented times but APCIA CEO David Sampson, presiding over the association’s first virtual annual conference, says he is proud of its response and its ability to help craft solutions to future pandemics.
Sampson notes that, globally, insurers have already paid out on almost $110 billion of COVID-19 claims. To put this amount in context, claims from Hurricane Katrina, the most expensive catastrophe loss for the insurance industry to date, cost $41 billion in claims at the time (in 2005), which would equate to some $54 billion today.
On top of paying direct claims, the industry has done its bit in other ways. Auto insurers in the US have returned some $14 billion to customers in the form of policyholder relief because fewer journeys being made have resulted in fewer accidents and fewer claims.
“This has been an unprecedented year in terms of challenges, some of which strike to the very foundation of insurance. The world has changed, and COVID-19 is taking lives as well as livelihoods, with the biggest economic contraction since the Great Depression.
“I am proud of the way the industry has responded; it has adjusted to operational challenges, is paying claims and remains financially robust,” Sampson said.
One of the most concerning threats, which the APCIA has lobbied vigorously against, has been in the form of some states moving to force insurers to retroactively cover certain types of claims, notably workers’ compensation, despite their clearly not being covered in the original policy.
Sampson said the APCIA opposed this for a number of reasons, one of which was because it knew insurers needed to remain financially robust to pay out on other types of claims.
The 2020 hurricane season has been one of the worst on record so far—it is only the second time in history that the number of named storms has exceeded the number of letters in the modern English alphabet, meaning new storms are now being named following the Greek alphabet.
The last time this happened was in 2005 when 27 tropical storms or cyclones were recorded, including Hurricane Katrina.
A sneak preview: more exclusive content and interviews inside
A sneak preview: more exclusive content and interviews inside
AM Re relocates to Texas, plans E&S carrier launch in 2021
AM Re Syndicate has relocated at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and is rolling out ambitious growth and diversification plans. CEO Shevawn Barder explains more.
US-based reinsurance provider AM Re Syndicate, which almost exclusively writes specialty quota share reinsurance matching US cedants with Asian security, has moved its operation to Dallas, Texas, from New York, boosted its team with a number of hires and unveiled plans to launch its own excess and surplus lines (E&S) carrier in 2021.
The company, which anticipates writing $500 million of business this year, works with a panel of Asian reinsurers including China’s PICC Reinsurance, India’s GIC Re and Malaysian Re.
AM Re holds a unique place in the US, as one of the largest quota share reinsurers in the US market. By concentrating on quota share reinsurance AM Re’s security base partners with primary companies in the market to support the integrity of the US domestic primary market.
It has acted as a managing general agent (MGA) until now, but the launch of its own carrier, which it will incorporate into its own panel of security, marks a step-change for the business, which has diversified greatly in recent years.
