A.M. BestTV at RIMS: As Insurers’ Range of Competitors Widens, Leaders Say Scaling Up Matters

Business Wire

OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In this ^A.M.BestTV episode at The Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.’s (RIMS) conference in San Antonio, TX, a panel of property/casualty and reinsurance leaders said the industry may be in for additional mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as insurers respond to escalating customer needs and new forms of competition, including from capital markets. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=rims1418 to view the entire program. For full video coverage of RIMS, including exclusive executive interviews, visit http://www.ambest.tv/rims18.

Panel participants said the property/casualty industry is evolving more rapidly than ever before.

Lex Baugh, chief executive officer, North American general insurance, American International Group, Inc., spoke about how much M&As have impacted the industry.

“It is a pro-competitive market. M&As are bringing capacity to the market, which has enabled it to continue to expand and develop business,” said Baugh. “The period where there were lots of releases of prior-year reserves is probably over for a while. That means there is stress on the industry.”

Greg Hendrick, president, property/casualty insurance and reinsurance, XL Catlin, believes some of the stress on the market is the result of emerging risks.

“Cyber is not new, but it seems to be ever-emerging. The industry needs to find a way to build a tower of capacity, which specifically addresses cyber and all the perils that come with it, whether it is property, liability and/or peoples’ data,” said Hendrick.

Looking forward, Lori Goltermann, chief executive officer, Aon Risk Solutions, said that, “the digital economy is going to collide with the physical assets of a company. As each company’s customer profile changes, there is going to be a need to drive more e-commerce and to have the distribution of products change … the boundaries of what you used to think were the exposures are much different today.”

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^A.M.BestTV covers exclusive A.M. Best information and reports, targeted topics and key developments in the (re)insurance industry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sign up for alerts of episodes at http://www.ambest.com/multimedia/ambtvsignup.html. View ^A.M.BestTV episodes at http://www.ambest.tv.

A.M. Best is the world’s oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.