Insurers to ramp up private equity exposure in 2014

Insurers are rethinking their investment strategies and beginning to increase their exposure to private equity. Some are even looking at it from an asset-liability management perspective.

Insurers have begun to shrug off their risk-averse attitude to investing. While caution remains the watchword as the world economy braces itself for a potentially bumpy exit from quantitative easing, companies are becoming less afraid of certain assets that had spooked them during the dark days of the financial crisis.

One such asset class is private equity. Most insurers either froze or reduced their allocations to this class as they waited to ride out the storm that broke in 2008. Now some are