Chris Klein, Guy Carpenter’s Head of Business Intelligence, presents an illustration of the impact that higher investment returns can have on (re)insurer return on equity. A company with a 6 percent investment return is able to earn a 10 percent return on equity despite an unfavorable underwriting ratio. The situation is very different if the investment return drops by only 2 percentage points.

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Chris Klein, Guy Carpenter’s Head of Business Intelligence, discusses the pressure that the long term decline in yields of fixed-income securities is exerting on (re)insurers. The subsidy of poor underwriting that good investment returns have provided has disappeared.

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Donald Mango, Chief Actuary
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The profound financial damage that began last year has left the insurance industry looking for answers. Diligent underwriting and conservative investment strategies were not enough to prevent natural and financial catastrophes from bleeding balance sheets. Both firm leadership teams and key stakeholders have questioned the value of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) frameworks, yet the conclusion that ERM failed may be hasty. After all, the insurance industry actually survived the events of 2008 reasonably well, with at least some of the credit going to their ERM efforts. Where risk management did fail, the underlying causes were deeper.

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