If Canadian P&C insurers thought the Cat reinsurance market was tough this year, just wait until next year. “Global reinsurers are cutting back on the cover they provide against medium-sized natural catastrophe risks due to investor pressure after several years…
AXA XL has named Glen Hopkinson the new country manager for Canada. Removing the ‘interim’ tag from his title, the company said Monday that Hopkinson will lead AXA XL’s insurance operations in the country, effective immediately. “Glen’s extensive insurance expertise,…
New risks emerging in Canada are leading reinsurers to increase premiums, industry experts have told Canadian Underwriter. Although U.S. damage losses last year far outweighed Canada’s, contributing significantly to escalating reinsurance prices, insured NatCat damage in Canada in 2022 was…
Lloyd’s Underwriters accounted for $6.1 billion in net written premium in Canada in 2022, dwarfing the amount written by the next highest reinsurer member of the Reinsurance Research Council (RRC) in Canada. Composed of 22 reinsurers that write business in…
What’s a reasonable rate of return for Canada’s property and casualty insurers? According to Craig Pinnock, chief financial officer at Northbridge Financial Corporation, for the insurance industry, it could sit anywhere between 5% on the low end, 10% on average,…
One of the hallmarks of a warming world is that you never know what may come next. The reasonably stable climate of the last 100,000 years is being thrown into disarray as Earth’s systems are forced out of kilter. For…
Reinsurers reached a tipping point during their January renewal cycle that saw primary insurers bearing larger-than-usual rate increases. Which had the industry asking: How much of these reinsurance increases will make their way down to consumers? And do insurers have…
Back in July 2004, I wrote an article for Canadian Underwriter called ‘Our own worst enemy,’ about the mechanics of the insurance cycle. The piece explained “cyclical rate peaks and valleys in (re)insurance [i.e., primary insurance and reinsurance] markets almost…
In the lead-up to the July 1 reinsurance renewals, both the pricing and structural market dynamics that defined the Jan. 1, 2023 renewal period held steady, said Gallagher Re’s most recent 1st View renewals report. During the July 1 renewals,…
Although pricing caught most people’s attention during the January reinsurance renewal season, the terms and conditions were restricted, contributing to why Canada’s primary insurers are retaining more risk for high-frequency secondary perils. “Over the last number of years, there’s been…
Canada’s primary insurers will need to run at sustained combined operating ratios of 95% or lower in the future in order to withstand future NatCat losses (and the cost of reinsuring them), without having to pass costs on to consumers,…
Coming out of the pandemic, the global economic environment still contains two ingredients for ongoing hard market conditions in Canada’s P&C insurance sector — high inflation, and a lack of global reinsurance capacity. “If you look at the picture behind…