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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A new briefing has been published with the purpose of informing Guy Carpenter’s approach to hurricane risk in the context of new scientific findings.

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The dramatic rise in political instability and civil unrest across the globe, including uprisings in the Middle East and protests in Greece and Spain, has triggered a significant shift in the nature of terrorism risk and has highlighted the need for tailored terrorism and political violence protection, according to  “Tensions Building: the Changing Nature of Terrorism Risk and Coverage,” by Guy Carpenter.

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Micah Woolstenhulme, Senior Vice President
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This post is Part II of an earlier post that reviewed a session held at the Casualty Actuarial Society Annual Meeting.  In that session, attendees hypothetically viewed the P&C industry as a single large company. Audience members were shareholders and session panelists adopted various executive and leadership roles in the company. The meeting’s task was to vet an economic capital model before the board of directors, allowing individual shareholders the freedom to openly question the model’s input and results. This model, if properly developed and embedded into the company’s strategic management, would represent a key component of the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) Summary Report that will be required of large companies in the industry as early as 2015. Along the way, the presentation and board discussion were interrupted to poll the audience members on several interesting questions.

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Micah Woolstenhulme, Senior Vice President
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At the 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, the general session, “Economic Capital Modeling for ORSA in the U.S. Property and Casualty (P&C) Industry:  The Stakeholders Convene,” afforded participants a novel opportunity to satisfy their continuing education credits. In that session, attendees hypothetically viewed the P&C industry as a single large company. Audience members were shareholders and session panelists adopted various executive and leadership roles in the company.

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Here we highlight recent GC Capital Ideas stories on enterprise risk management. 

Guy Carpenter Launches MetaRisk® 7.1: Guy Carpenter today announced the release of MetaRisk® 7.1, the latest version of the firm’s premier risk and capital management decision making tool. The platform offers access to a variety of new features and enhancements that will improve usability, increase overall functionality and enable the development of more accurate and efficient risk and capital models.

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Risk Preference Function - Embedding Risk-Reward in Capital Allocation: Capital allocation decisions are among the most important decisions made by company management. Through our own research and thought leadership and our observance of best practices at clients around the world, Guy Carpenter’s Enterprise Risk Management Advisory practice has compiled a set of leading practices around capital allocation for (re)insurers.

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Joan Lamm-Tennant, PhD, Chief Economist and Risk Strategist
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The macroeconomic environment continues to be top-of-mind among insurance leaders. With growth in global real gross domestic product (GDP) slowing from 4.1 percent in 2010 to 3 percent in 2011, insurance leaders continue to experience significant headwinds challenging profitable growth. As reported by Swiss Re, insurance overall direct premiums declined 0.8 percent in real terms in 2011. Nevertheless, pockets of opportunities do exist and will continue in the near term. Stabilizing social/political conditions, investments in infrastructure and demographic progression continue to fuel strong positive GDP growth and increasing insurance penetration in emerging economies. In these economies, overall direct premiums increased 1.3 percent in real terms in 2011, with non-life premiums increasing 9.1 percent.

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Guy Carpenter today announced the release of MetaRisk® 7.1, the latest version of the firm’s premier risk and capital management decision making tool. The platform offers access to a variety of new features and enhancements that will improve usability, increase overall functionality and enable the development of more accurate and efficient risk and capital models.

Continue reading…

Here we review recent GC Capital Ideas’  top stories on capital management. 

Risk Preference Function - Embedding Risk-Reward in Capital Allocation:  Capital allocation decisions are among the most important decisions made by company management. Through our own research and thought leadership and our observance of best practices at clients around the world, Guy Carpenter’s Enterprise Risk Management Advisory practice has compiled a set of leading practices around capital allocation for (re)insurers.

Read the article >>

Adapting to an Evolving Market of More Permanent Capital Market Capacity: A new capital management paradigm is challenging the traditional reinsurance model. Historically, significant market losses from major catastrophic events and low investment yields were a catalyst for an improved rate environment. Faced with current economic conditions, reinsurers are finding it more difficult to generate adequate returns in excess of their cost of capital, and are seeing an increased competitive threat from alternative capacity from the capital markets. New money appears to be more permanent and therefore limits the firmness and duration of any improved rate environment.

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