Many of the products people use every day are made in foreign countries - from coffee makers produced in China to cars built in Germany to cell phones manufactured in India. While many of these products fulfill their purpose without any complications, there are others that cause problems for their users. A coffee maker might spill boiling water or a car’s airbag might not open properly. These problems can be caused by manufacturing errors or flaws in product design.

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On December 12, 2007, there was a fire in an industrial plant in Turin that was owned and managed by ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni S.p.a. (ThyssenKrupp), an Italian subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Stainless group. The violent fire occurred in a cold annealing and pickling line, called APL5, where there is typically a significant amount of lubricant oil and paper, as well as sparks generated by the plant’s industrial process.

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Here we highlight recent GC Capital Ideas stories authored by Andrew Cox, Head of Advisory, EMEA, at Guy Carpenter. 

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The Insurance Contract Act (Versicherungsvertragsgesetz, VVG) contains provisions about risk exclusions and incidental obligations. A risk exclusion means the insurer does not provide insurance cover for a specified excluded risk, and in cases of an incidental obligation, the policyholder loses insurance cover if he/she does not observe the specified incidental obligation.

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Here we highlight recent GC Capital Ideas stories that have focused on casualty lines of business. 

Contingent Business Interruption: Life Support for Industry: Traditional insurance products are insufficient to address these increasingly complex challenges. The standard business interruption policy only indemnifies an insured for a reduction in revenue following damage at its own premises. Contingent business interruption is a generic term for extensions to the standard cover that provide for reduction in revenue as a result of damage at locations other than the insured’s own premises, whether it be suppliers or customers. In some cases insurers are providing cover on a “non-damage” basis, which protects against insolvency or political risk among an array of contingencies that might disturb the supply chain.

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Criminal Liability of Companies Under Spanish Law: What is the Real Impact on Directors & Officers Coverage? The financial crisis has triggered a number of criminal investigations against companies and their directors. In light of these developments, this section provides an overview of the recently introduced Spanish regulation concerning criminal liability of companies and the real impact this reform will have on directors and officers policies.

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Swiss Supreme Court: Scope of Ban on Retroactive Insurance: The current Swiss Insurance Contract Act (Versicherungsvertragsgesetz, VVG) prohibits retroactive insurance. Therefore, an insurance contract is usually void if the risk no longer exists or the feared event has already occurred before the contract is concluded (Article 9 VVG).

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There was variation regionally in the Guy Carpenter Regional Property Catastrophe Reinsurance Rate on Line (ROL) index. U.S. property catastrophe pricing was most affected by the landfall of Superstorm Sandy while other regions were flat to down.

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Recent Legislative and Judicial Developments in Continental Europe Affecting the Casualty Insurance Industry  is the latest installment in Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd.’s (”Guy Carpenter’s”) legislative update series, designed to provide our international clients and markets with a concise overview of key trends in the Continental European legal environment. These issues have had an impact on insurers and reinsurers or are expected to have an effect in the near future.

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David Lightfoot, Head of GC Analytics® - International, Eddy Vanbeneden, Head of GC Analytics - Continental Europe and Markus Mueller, GC Analytics, Solvency II Continental Europe
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Benchmarking QIS5 Scenario Return Period against Vendor Models

Our analysis supports the fact that losses in the QIS5 windstorm scenarios are often within the range of the major vendor models. But how do return frequencies compare? The QIS5 standard scenarios are tailored to represent a 200 year return period in each territory. Looking at the QIS5 loss estimate on the modeled exceedance probability curves reveals the corresponding modeled return period. Plotting the implied vendor model return frequencies against the QIS5 scenarios’ 1-in-200 year level yields an interesting (albeit similar) spread, as shown in Table 1.

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David Lightfoot, Head of GC Analytics® - International, Eddy Vanbeneden, Head of GC Analytics - Continental Europe and Markus Mueller, GC Analytics, Solvency II Continental Europe
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With the generalized use of catastrophe models to measure the natural catastrophe exposure of insurance portfolios, the outcomes of these models have more and more influence in the determination of reinsurance needs. With the introduction of the Solvency II regime, the decision on reinsurance purchase should also be an integral part of a company’s risk management process. Specifically, an important consideration is the impact of reinsurance contracts on the Solvency Capital Ratio, a key decision metric of the risk management process. This process is not always easy when the probable maximum losses (PMLs) derived by the cat models differ from the standard European scenarios under Solvency II for calculation of the Solvency Capital Requirement for cat risk (SCR_Cat).

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