Tough road ahead for Japanese life insurers: GlobalData Japanese life insurers face a series of tough challenges over the next five years because of the country’s ageing demographic and economic factors, according to GlobalData. The data and analytics company has forecasted that the Japanese life insurance industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6% from $274.9 billion in 2021 to $313.3 billion in 2026, in terms of direct written premiums (DWP). This CAGR is mainly due to sluggish sales of term life and savings products, and it is comparable to the 2.4% growth registered in 2021, which came after two consecutive years of decline in 2019 and 2020. Ashish Raj...
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Unclaimed Life Insurance Benefits Closing an Expensive Loophole By Courtney King Published June 2017 Imagine purchasing a life insurance policy to ease the financial burden on your family after your passing, and faithfully paying premiums for years or even decades. But following your death, your beneficiaries never see a dime because they don’t know your policy exists. And then imagine that the life insurance company keeps paying itself premiums out of the value of your insurance, even though it may have known of your death. For many Americans, it's been an unfortunate reality. But many states, most recently Texas, have taken steps to see this unjust scenario doesn't keep occurring....
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Life insurance has traditionally been considered one of the more complicated and expensive insurance sectors to buy cover from. Invasive health tests and rafts of questions, as well as raised premiums liked to previous conditions and even the address of the customer, have resulted in a protection gap that has widened substantially over the last two years. But the latest digital insurers are changing the journey by creating products that can be bought in minutes with a limited number of clicks, and also modified by the customer to better suit their needs. A life insurance platform with a difference, DeadHappy is one of the UK’s most successful and up-and-coming insurtech platforms. The...
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SOFIA (Bulgaria), October 4 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian life insurance companies generated a combined net profit of 23.4 million levs ($11.8 million/12 million euro) in the first half of 2022, compared to a net profit of some 7.3 million levs a year earlier, data from the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) showed on Tuesday. Life insurers' gross written premiums (GWP) went up 7.8% year-on-year to 319.3 million levs at the end of June, the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said in a monthly data release. Life insurance premiums connected with investment funds edged up to 252.2 million levs in the review period from 246.4 million levs in the like period of 2021. Gross premiums on newly...
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Changing RBC Bond Factors for U.S. Life Insurance Companies – What Does it all Mean? Life insurance companies are among the largest investors in the U.S. corporate bond market. As such, any potential changes in their investment behavior could impact market technicals and are worth monitoring. This explains why the recent changes by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) have piqued the insurance industries’ interest. For years, the NAIC has contemplated changes to their Risk-Based Capital (RBC) C-1 risk factors, which help determine how much capital life insurers must hold against their bond portfolios, and are a meaningful input in informing their investment...
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Very hungry financial caterpillars — private equity firms — continued to gobble up U.S. life insurance company investment assets in 2020. It’s still unclear to insurance regulators exactly what this means. Analysts at the Capital Markets Bureau, an arm of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, say private equity firms controlled a total of $471 billion in U.S. life insurance company cash and invested assets at the end of 2020. That was up 39% from the total at the end of 2019. Private equity firms’ U.S. life insurance company assets increased just 9.4% between 2018 and 2019. The growth in assets at private equity firm-controlled life insurers was due partly to acquisitions and...
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Fitch highlights strong capital position of mutual US life insurers Fitch Ratings has given the Large and Highly Rated Mutual US Life Insurers peer group an Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) score ranging from ‘AA+ to ‘AAA’. This is driven chiefly by the mutual insurers’ capital positions. Compared with stock companies, the mutual insurers generally have a longer-term focus on sustainable returns while maintaining excess capital compared with target levels and rating expectations. In contrast to the broader US life insurance industry, Fitch views the peer group as having below-average liability risk. The peer group’s predictable and long-duration liabilities enhance its risk profile as...
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T he European life insurance market is facing several challenges and opportunities that are going to shape the future of the industry. Chief among these is an aging European population, which is having a polarizing effect on how insurers service their clients, as well as how they win new ones. A key impact of these aging populations is that state-funded pensions are becoming costlier to manage. Governments are responding by placing more responsibility on individuals to plan for their own retirement, which is shifting the emphasis to private sector solutions. For instance, in the UK, the introduction of automatic enrollment in workplace pension schemes has brought 10 million new individuals...
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Dan Diggins is the Head of Regulated Roles and Head of Europe within the Insurance & Financial Services practice of Hymans Robertson. Dan has almost 25 years of experience both in industry and as a consultant including deep and broad experience in market-risk, M&A, Insurance business transfers, restructuring etc. Dan holds practising certificates for Chief Actuary and With-Profits Actuary and has provided peer review services to a number of high-profile proposed restructuring projects. He is currently appointed as the Independent Actuary on a proposed business restructure. Matthew is an Investment & ALM Consultant within the Insurance & Financial Services practice of Hymans...
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Life Insurers’ New Business Premia Jumps 18% On Robust Demand In August Despite a large base, new business premia of life insurers increased by 18 per cent, indicating robust demand for life insurance The figures in the latest business statement released by the Life Insurance Council show the industry is perhaps shows that people have started picking up life insurances again. 'I Want To Break Free': Trials And Tribulations Of The Queer Community In India Amid positive changes in the legal landscape for the LGBTQIA+ community, a lesbian woman wonders why she still needs to travel abroad to get her same-sex marriage registered. A Kashmiri Transsexual's Resolve To Fight Against Social...
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