Insurance
Insurers’ favourite credit rating becomes more expensive
US institutions face a dilemma: go up a rating and lose yield or go down a rating and increase risk
Even Covid couldn’t stop insurers buying risky CLO tranches
NAIC rules make mezzanine debt more attractive than AAAs or corporate bonds with similar ratings
Aegon turns its back on pension deals in its home market
The Netherlands is Europe’s second-biggest pension market, but Aegon made little money from deals
The race to offload the world’s biggest pool of assets
Specialist insurers on both sides of the Atlantic expect a bumper post-Covid second half of 2021
Zurich’s Scott: don’t levy climate risk capital charges
Imposing set-asides based on stress tests “does not make any sense”, sustainability chief warns watchdogs
Early deaths could kill defined benefit pension shortfalls
Covid-19 will only worsen a trend in life expectancy that was already well underway
A bold step forward in climate-related financial risk supervision
Banque de France’s Denis Beau explains the results of a pilot exercise, and what comes next
Fed economist sounds alert over op risk capital arbitrage
Insurance payouts could allow banks to pare back capital without equivalent reduction in risk, says paper
Asia moves: HKEX names new CEO, BNY Mellon appoints Japan country executive, and more
Latest job news across the industry
Put options power up variable annuities
Insurance quants increase risk-adjusted profits using novel hedging technique
The importance of getting technology change right
Christoph Kurth, partner and member of the global financial institutions leadership team at Baker McKenzie, covers some of the rapid technological changes under way brought about by, and in the wake of, the Covid-19 pandemic
Callable repack frenzy opens up new options market in Europe
Demand driven mainly by French life insurers looking for alternatives to low-yielding sovereign bonds
Regulatory arbitrage in the use of insurance in the new standardized approach for operational risk capital
Basel’s new standardized approach (SA) for operational risk capital may allow for regulatory arbitrage through the use of insurance. Under the SA, banks will likely have an incentive to insure recurring losses. Such insurance can meaningfully reduce…
Korea lifers set to increase hedging as accounting shake-up looms
Bond forwards likely to be favoured instrument, but interest rate swaps market could develop
Solvency ratios of EU life insurers continued to fall in Q3
In contrast, the median capital ratio of groups and non-life firms increased
Equity derivatives house of the year: Citi
Risk Awards 2021: US bank vaults into the top-tier, with some help from Garry Kasparov
Credit Suisse bets on intraday vol signals to revive FIA sales
New line of fixed indexed annuities will use intraday data for more precise vol targeting
State regulators could lead on CFTC climate risk plans
Sympathetic rulemakers don’t need to wait for a change of federal government, say experts
Covid chaos ate into EU insurers’ own funds
Aggregate ratio of own funds to SCR fell 14 percentage points in Q1
EU insurers’ fund holdings battered by Covid in Q1
Total asset portfolios declined 6% through Covid shock
Accounting rules snare insurers in SOFR discounting switch
Re-couponing swaps to reduce discount risk could have adverse accounting consequences for insurers
Equity hedges bolstered Axa through Covid crisis
Economic hedges contributed €425 million to H1 income
Eurozone insurers dived back into bonds in Q2
Net purchases of debt securities amounted to €15.1 billion over Q2
Market risks push Allianz’s Solvency II ratio lower in Q2
Whipsawing markets help take three percentage points of the firm’s core solvency ratio