Swiss Re strongly positioned to offer capacity, enabling clients to seize business opportunities, while maintaining a stringent focus on profitable underwriting.
Stefan Lippe, Swiss Re’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Since the beginning of 2009, we have significantly increased our capacity to enable clients to benefit from attractive business opportunities. At the end of June our excess capital was estimated at CHF 4.5 billion above the AA required level. With our excellent core business portfolio, nurtured by years of disciplined underwriting and active cycle management, coupled with de-risking efforts, we have a strong foundation to support our clients and grow our business in the most profitable segments.”
Swiss Re is in a strong position to support its clients
Throughout the financial markets turmoil, the property and casualty insurance industry has proven its resilience. Michel Liès, Head of Client Markets said: “Even when the financial crisis was in full swing, we were able to deliver capacity to our clients. This has created a lot of goodwill and positioned us well for the upcoming January 2010 renewals.”
He added: “We are observing a broad upward trend in overall reinsurance pricing, although this varies significantly between different lines of business. While the prices on property lines of business are improving, long-tail industry segments, especially casualty, have yet to adjust to the lower interest rate environment and still do not adequately reflect years of premium reductions, and anticipated loss trends. We therefore continue to steer capacity away from casualty into the more profitable property lines of business.”
Delivering innovative solutions for the clients
Michel Liès emphasised that when underwriting markets are mixed, a simplistic “broad-brush” approach across industry segments, or clients, is not sufficient. “Strong client-specific analyses and solutions are called for, and Swiss Re works closely with its clients to develop both traditional and innovative solutions that respond to their individual needs.”
Examples where Swiss Re delivers innovative solutions for clients and other stakeholders include the development of agricultural insurance in emerging markets, and in particular the recent cooperation with the Chinese government. In Europe, Swiss Re is working together with the Pan–European Risk Insurance Linked Service company (PERILS) to develop a European windstorm index that will facilitate risk trading and further broaden the ILS market.
Stefan Lippe concluded: “Our top priority is to deploy capacity and innovative solutions for the benefit of our clients and shareholders. Conditions in the reinsurance market have been improving throughout 2009. In a difficult market environment, we have demonstrated that Swiss Re’s client franchise is powerful and that we deliver value to our clients.”
