European life insurers' investment return fell to -22.1% in 2022

Written by Adam Cadle

31/07/2023

The investment return for European life insurers fell to -22.1% in 2022 from 2% in 2021, driven by unrealised losses especially on fixed income assets, EIOPA’s latest Risk Dashboard has revealed.

Excluding unrealised losses, the return on investments would decrease from 2% in 2021 to 0.9% in 2022.

European insurers’ median exposures to government bonds hovered around 26% of total assets in Q1 2023. The median exposures of EU27 insurers’ investments in corporate bonds – financials, unsecured, slightly decreased to 8.3% in Q1 2023 from 8.8%.

Median exposures to corporate bonds – financials, secured, were around 2% of total assets for the same period and investments in corporate bonds – non-financials were around 9% of total assets.

EIOPA said median exposures to loans and mortgages remained around 0.37%. The median share of below investment grade assets slightly decreased to around 1% in Q1 2023 from 1.17%.

There are no related documents to show at this time.

Portfolio optimisation in today’s challenging market environment

Adam Cadle speaks to Dr Laura Ryan, Head of Research at Ardea Investment Management, about the firm’s insurance asset allocation optimisation tool and the reasons for developing it

The role ETFs can play in the ESG journey for insurers

Justin Wheeler, Head of UK iShares Asset Owner Distribution at BlackRock, and Mark Guirey, Head of EMEA Insurance Segment and UK Asset Owner Client Coverage at MSCI, discuss the drivers behind growth in this area, market reactions to COVID-19, and the role of indexing