Divide and Transfer: The Newest Legacy Liabilities Restructuring Mechanisms

Legislators and regulatory insurance departments are acknowledging that insurers need new tools to effectively manage legacy liabilities, whether it is for finality, capitalization, solvency, or operational efficiency. Insurers need a mechanism that will facilitate separating liabilities into a different entity through a sale or spin-off.

2019 US Cyber Market Update

Aon provides a new report covering the industry’s 2018 performance. The big story: growth trends in this area are slowing.

Potential Quota Share Replacement Capacity

Given the operating leverage and margin ceded through certain quota share arrangements, raising capital via debt or surplus note may be a meaningfully less expensive source of capital. This report from Aon includes a comparison of quota share cost of capital vs. debt.

Aon Securities Credit Abstract: Debt Transaction Structures

Insurance private credit deals tend to be highly negotiated with investors. It is important for an issuer’s management team to properly assess all the structural features associated with a transaction.

Update from AM Best's 2019 Review & Preview Conference

Aon provides an analysis of key points from AM Best’s recent annual insurance ratings conference. This analysis includes a review of the property/casualty breakout sessions, market segment outlooks, and more.

Surplus Note Overview

This one-page document from Aon Securities explores the basics of surplus notes and how insurers can use them.

AM Best Innovation Scoring Draft

The ratings agency has proposed a new initiative to measure and score a company’s innovation activities. This draft document from March 2019 offers a proposed method and explains what would constitute the components of an innovation score under this proposal.

AM Best Innovation Criteria Analysis

Experts from Aon evaluate AM Best’s proposed innovation scoring method (see below) and provide insights on how it could affect the insurance industry.

2019 Cyber Security Report

In 2019, the greatest challenge organizations will face is simply keeping up with and staying informed about the evolving cyber risk landscape. In this report, Aon’s Cyber Solutions explores eight risks that organizations may face this year no matter where they are on their digital journey.

Reinsurance Market Outlook – 2019

Reinsurance buyers continue to secure protection at accretive cost of capital terms despite a reduction in global reinsurer capital. Learn more about what the experts at Aon think will happen in the reinsurance market in the coming months.

Profitability in Non-Life Insurance: Mind the Gap

The market environment remains challenging, but short- and long-term opportunities for growth exist. With an estimated 2 billion people globally having no access to insurance, addressing the protection gap is the most promising long-term opportunity along with the growth of risk pools.

Reinsurance Market Outlook: June-July 2018

Despite catastrophe loss from Hurricane Irma in 2017, the risk transfer market in June and July 2018 continued to show a strong appetite for renewals, even on loss-affected accounts.

US Cyber Market Update

Last year saw an explosion of ransomware and cyber attacks, making the cyber insurance industry more important than ever. Learn about the state of the industry today and how the growth of this segment will impact your business.

2018 Update from A.M. Best Review & Preview Conference

Aon Benfield offers an overview of the highlights and trends that were shared at A.M. Best’s annual insurance ratings conference.

Natural Catastrophes and Man-Made Disasters in 2017

2017 was a devastating year for natural disasters in the US. This short publication gives an overview of a year of record-breaking losses.

Reinsurance Market Outlook 2018

This analysis from Aon Benfield explores what happened in the reinsurance market landscape in 2017 and provides a glimpse of what to expect in 2018.

Cyber Threat Insights (3/18)

Aon Benfield's cyber threat newsletter reports an increase in cyber extortion incidents and examines the threat of state-sponsored cyber activity.

US Terrorism Risk

Acts of terrorism are sadly now a part of everyday life. Despite their increased frequency, they are surprisingly difficult to quantify and can cause all sorts of problems from a risk management perspective. Yet that doesn't mean they are uninsurable.

Smart Home Technology

Smart home technology offers insurance companies the opportunity to better engage customers and grow their market share. But there is still an uncertainty around how these advancements might impact our industry. This short publication helps shed some light on that.

Commercial insurance

Commercial insurance: innovating to expand the scope of insurability examines the dynamics of a rapidly changing economy and its impacts on the commercial insurance space. As the economy pivots away from physical assets to intellectual property, networks, and data, this paper explores how these changes can unlock opportunity for insurers to explore new markets and ideas.

CTE – What Insurers Need to Know Now

From Hollywood movies to high profile lawsuits, the issue of traumatic brain injury caused by sports related concussions has been brought to the force recently. What is less widely known is how insurers might be impacted. A recent Trend Spotlight sheds some light on the issue and what it might mean for our industry.

Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2016: a year of widespread damages

Last year, economic losses from disasters nearly doubled to USD 175 billion. Insured losses also jumped from to USD 54 billion from USD 38 billion. These numbers were at their highest since 2012 and mark a reversal from the recent below-average years. Economic losses and insured losses were back close to their 10-year averages, with about 30% of total losses covered by insurance.

Some areas fared much better because of higher insurance penetration. But by contrast, last year's multi-billion dollar flood events in Mississippi and Louisiana showed that even developed countries like the US are not immune to underinsurance. Less than a third of USD 10 billion in economic losses – around USD 3 billion – were covered by insurance. With these events fresh in mind, and the NFIP re-authorization looming this year, there's a special focus on US flood in the paper.

Strategic reinsurance and insurance: the increasing trend of customized solutions -

There is increasing demand for customized and more strategically-motivated re/insurance solutions. Structured solutions can increase efficiency of risk protection programs compared to standard products and reinsurance can also be used as a corporate finance tool and to support a cedent's long-term growth ambitions. Key factors for success include a clear objective, experience, capacity, use of best practices and transparent communication

SONAR: New emerging risk insights

Emerging risks are on everyone in the industry's lips. Swiss Re's SONAR report highlights 21 emerging risks that the re/insurance industry should keep on its radar. The three emerging risks with the highest potential impact are "emerging markets crisis 2.0 ", "the great monetary experiment " and "Internet fragmentation " Others topics to keep top of mind include "human-induced earthquakes " and "mass migration "

Trend Spotlight: Smart homes – their impact on insurance claims

Consumers are drawn to smart-home technology. They like the convenience of being able to remotely monitor and control climate, lighting and entertainment devices. As this technology becomes more effective and more common – and leads to fewer and smaller insurance claims – homeowners may soon be asking for discounted insurance premiums.

While much of the new smart-home technology focuses on convenience, some types of technologies will prevent or mitigate the leading perils that cause losses under homeowner’s policies such as water damage, burglary or fire. This paper looks at the latest smart-home technology and how it can help insurers.

Trend Spotlight: Asbestos – the comeback kid

Asbestos is the longest running mass tort in United States history. The first claims began in the 1970s, so why are we still hearing about asbestos today? Whether you examine claims from those who lived, worked and breathed near the World Trade Center after the attack on 9/11, or from teachers who allege mesothelioma as the result of sitting in a classroom where they believed asbestos was “contained,” these groups are just two examples of why asbestos is still a key exposure in the insurance industry today.

Trend Spotlight: The internet of things – a new landscape of hyperconnectivity and vulnerability

Technology is moving at an incredibly fast pace and it’s difficult, but critical, to stay current on how these developments will affect the insurance industry. The Internet of Things (IoT) will be a key driver for exposure changes, emerging risk issues and new coverage questions. How do we begin to understand the implications? A starting point is to review the core concepts and capabilities of the IoT and then begin to assess the impact on insurance, including anticipating new claims and losses.