Written by: Griffiths & Armour on: 03 Mar 2020
What does the future Insurance landscape look like?
The increase in rates that started slowly in 2018 and gained momentum in 2019 is expected to continue into 2020 and beyond. That said, the level of increases will be based on the quality of risk. For example, a good claims experience and risk management procedures will mitigate any proposed increases.
Hard market?
Speaking to our insurer partners and looking at their latest results, we discovered that there is a uniform consensus: If the trends of costly catastrophes and frequent and severe losses continue, insurer balance sheets will weaken and thus jeopardise the industry’s appetite to provide policies in certain classes of insurance over time.
With no foreseeable investment boost and reductions in reserves to support current and legacy claims, insurers must address their income i.e. increase premiums.
The impact on the buyer could be the insolvency of weaker insurers and/or a “hard market.” The current market conditions are very challenging, with insurers reducing their flexibility across several classes of insurance, not least Professional Indemnity, Directors & Officers and Property.
Dynamics
- Risk mispriced
- Unprofitable insurers
- Capacity withdraws
- Premium spikes
- Coverage reduces
- Claims are rejected
- Business is uninsured
We have seen some rises in reinsurance premiums, driven by the increases in natural catastrophes in recent years. Aligned to these increases, market capacity has reduced in certain sectors, resulting in several Lloyd’s of London syndicates exiting the market in 2019.
Whilst capacity has decreased in certain sectors, for others there remains plenty. This supply of capacity means that the duration of this market correction could be short lived, however much will depend on the natural catastrophes and major incidents that occur over the next 12-18 months.
Tripartite Relationships
At Griffiths & Armour, we trade with insurers in both the regional and London marketplaces, with insurer selection and the optimum marketplace governed by:
- Risk complexity
- Capacity requirements
- Underwriting speciality and suitability of policy covers
- Underwriting authority and sphere of influence
- Reputation and experience of insurer in your sector
- Access to key insurer ‘decision makers’ e.g. Chief Underwriting Officer, Claims Director.
Insurers tend to look backwards at claims performance rather than forwards in anticipation of improvements. We work with our clients to highlight leading indicators and future plans to encourage a forward-looking approach for insurers.
Our broking process includes:
- Early engagement with insurers to highlight the risk.
- Clear presentation of risk features to key alternative insurers
- Provision of detailed survey reports for your target locations.
- Shortlisting of competitive insurers.
- Conducting an insurer presentation day with you to attract new insurers to your programme.
The optimum position we seek is where the correct levels of risk are transferred to insurers at an affordable level of premium that can flex as your risk profile improves.
Solutions
Troy Johnson, Development Director at Griffiths & Armour said:
“Alongside creating a great environment for our team, our other main priority is providing a first-class service to our clients.
The insurance programmes we place for our clients are often unique, with solutions that are not available to other brokers. This is driven from our partnership approach in building knowledge and understanding of our clients and sharing this with insurers.
In my experience, organisations who are unprepared will likely face significant increases and worse if they need to replace insurers. Whereas those organisations able to show the efforts made to address underwriter concerns will be in a good position to mitigate and nullify these challenges.”
We are always interested to hear your views so if you have any questions or comments on this article, please get in touch with your dedicated insurance broker at Griffiths & Armour or alternatively, contact Troy Johnson below:
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