Centro de Documentacion de Fundación MAPFRE - Reinsurance market outlook, september 2017 : hurricane harvey highlights protection gap

Publication: Illinois, Chicago : AON Benfield, 2017Physical description: 24 p.Notes: Sumario: Hurricane Harvey came ashore in Texas on August 25, becoming the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the US since 2004. Catastrophic flooding across a broad section of eastern Texas and into southern Louisiana has caused significant property damage and disrupted industrial production and supply chains. There is a very human dimension to this natural disaster, given the low proportion of homeowners in the affected areas that have insurance coverage for flood. Beyond the immediate financial distress, it is already clear that economic losses will far exceed insured losses. As a result, the burden will ultimately fall mainly on US taxpayers. Sadly, this is just the latest manifestation of a global protection gap. Economic development and demographic trends are generating new concentrations of exposure, often in areas subject to natural catastrophes and at a time of increasing event frequency. Product delivery has lagged the changing needs of corporate buyers in developed markets and personal lines coverage of natural disaster risk remains patchy. In emerging markets, insurance penetration rates generally remain very low. On a global basis, emerging areas of risk such as cyber are presenting the insurance industry with new challenges. And yet the insurance industry is widely held to be over-capitalized and new investors are actively seeking access to diversified insurance risk. In fact, the first half of 2017 was notable for a renewed surge of alternative capital, which impacted the mid-year reinsurance renewals and is now finding its way into the primary market. Sustained growth in reinsurance demand is dependent upon increasing the relevance of insurance to the global economy. Although alternative capital is not expected to have a material impact on the protection gap in the short-term, it potentially presents an opportunity to grow what is insurable and create new products that can address some of the underlying issues. In the meantime, reinsurance continues to prove its worth as a means of mitigating earnings volatility, controlling peak exposures, addressing reserving risk and providing capital relief. There is every reason to believe that it will have a growing role to play, as capital becomes better matched to risk.Materia / lugar / evento: Reaseguro Mercado de reaseguros Estadísticas Catástrofes naturales Costes económicos Perspectivas del seguro Otros autores: Aon Benfield
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