All Insurance articles
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Video
The Role of Private Markets in the New Regime
While market yields have risen, insurers’ book yields remain low—making it difficult to keep up with claims inflation or compete with higher-rate banking and money-market savings products.
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Video
Dislocation: What Are the Opportunities, and Can Insurance Companies Take Advantage?
Higher rates and tighter financial conditions are leading to capital and liquidity shortages in private markets, creating opportunity for long-term investors prepared to step in as liquidity providers. We identify some of these opportunities and discuss how insurers in EMEA might capitalise on them.
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Video
Higher for Longer: Time to Close the Gap?
Fixed income yields remain near multi-year highs offering an opportunity for insurers to rebuild book yields, secure future investment earnings and continue to close the duration gap that opened up during the low-rate years. With short-term policy rates apparently at their peak, however, this opportunity may not last: now may be the time to lock in those longer-dated yields before they begin to retrace.
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Podcast
Martello Re: Building a Reinsurer from the Ground Up
Dennis Ho, CEO of Martello Re, sits down with Barings’ Colin Gordon to discuss the creation and rapid growth of Bermuda-based reinsurer Martello Re, and how trusted partnerships have been the key to tackling challenges ranging from investment returns to hiring and beyond.
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White papers
Brave New World: 2024 European Insurance Outlook
Insurers likely face a very different investment regime today than they have in the past, with higher and more volatile interest rates as well as structurally higher inflation. We think this will intensify the focus on strategic asset allocation. We offer three themes for insurance investors as 2024 gets under way.
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White papers
Can You Protect the Environment and Your Yield?
Reducing carbon intensity doesn’t mean sacrificing yields. Issue selection in high-emitting sectors can help insurers stay on track with their liabilities.
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White papers
Why ABS could be an attractive option for European insurers
A fundamental shift in the UK defined benefit (DB) pension market, sparked in September 2022 by the government’s ‘mini budget’, opened the doors to potential opportunities across the balance sheet for insurance companies. Here we explore how European insurers may be in a position to take advantage of the compelling risk adjusted returns on offer in the European ABS market.
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White papers
An accounting ‘big bang’? The implications for insurance investors from IFRS 9 and 17
Sustained inflation has triggered unprecedent monetary tightening and a surge in interest rates which in turn have revived volatility and provoked changes in market liquidity conditions.
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White papers
Insurance Fixed Income Outlook: Transition to more liquid assets
European Insurance companies started 2023 with high solvency ratios and a good outlook to improve their underlying profitability thanks to strong rate increases in reinsurance, and commercial P&C, while 2022 prices increases in retail P&C are slowly mitigating inflation.
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White papers
Relative Value & Tactical Asset Allocation: Q3 2023
As most central banks are nearing the end of the hiking cycle, JP Morgan’s Global Manufacturing PMI Index remained at a level consistent with a contraction. It was the ninth consecutive month below the neutral level of 50.
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White papers
Changing demand dynamics: Opportunities for European insurers
September 2022 caused a fundamental shift in the UK defined benefit (DB) pension market, as well as the demand dynamics for certain asset classes. European insurers are one of the few large institutional asset owners who are able to take advantage of these changes with opportunities presenting themselves across the balance sheet.
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White papers
Gauging S&P’s Proposed Changes to Its Risk-Based Capital Adequacy Methodology
Guy Haselmann, Head of Thought Leadership at MetLife Investment Management (MIM), recently sat down with Jingsu Pu, Global Head of Insurance Strategy and Solutions at MIM, to dig through the proposed changes S&P Global is considering to its Insurer Risk-Based Capital Adequacy Methodology. Jingsu will help assess what it could mean for insurers and their ratings.
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White papers
Under Pressure
In this interview with AM Best, Ken Griffin discusses how the rise in interest rates has impacted insurers, and what the accounting and capital implications of this environment are.
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White papers
Biodiversity: It’s Time to Protect Our Only Home - N°5 Managing Biodiversity in the Insurance Sector
Based on our engagement sample, the insurance sector demonstrates a mixed bag of awareness on the topic of biodiversity. Some of the insurers are taking the subject of biodiversity very seriously, and have announced a specific biodiversity strategy and/or devoted significant resources to initiatives and research on the topic. On the other hand, some of the companies were surprised and uncomfortable by our enquiry as biodiversity is not yet on their radar screen.
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White papers
Bridging the Gap: Insurers and Fixed Income
Can insurance investors take advantage of higher yields without crystalizing losses or assuming excessive risk ahead of a turn in the credit cycle?
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White papers
The Fluidity of Liquidity
To meet policyholder demands and terms of their financing arrangements, life insurers must maintain adequate levels of liquidity. Here are some reasons why today’s environment makes liquidity management so critical.
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White papers
With High Yield, Shorter May Be Better for Insurers’ Yields…and Capital Efficiency
With yield curves inverted in many parts of the world, investors no longer need to increase interest-rate risk to bolster yields. Instead, they can achieve the same end with shorter-duration high-yield bonds. For insurance investors that have typically shied away from high yield, we think this landscape—and the regulatory treatment—present a compelling opportunity.
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Video
Insurance-Linked Strategies State of the Market 2023
(4:23) Peter Miller, Senior Vice President on the Insurance-Linked Strategies team, discusses the current dislocation in the Insurance-Linked Securities market and what this could mean for investors.
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White papers
Tailor-made For The Italian Market
Ostrum AM’s one-stop shop adds value to institutional investors’ pre-trade, trading and post-trade activities