Biodiversity concerns among global institutional and wholesale investors are moving towards parity with those around climate change, Robeco’s latest Climate Survey has revealed

The Spanish insurance industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3% from €64.1bn ($76.6bn) to €82.9bn ($101.1bn) in 2027, in terms of direct written premiums (DWP), driven by the demand for life and health insurance, GlobalData has forecast

Aviva has completed a £34m buy-in with Chapelthorpe Plc Pension Fund, securing the benefits of the remaining 805 uninsured members in the scheme

The UK pension risk transfer market reached £44.7bn across buy-ins, buyouts and longevity swaps after a "strong finish" to 2022, analysis from LCP has revealed, with continued demand expected to prompt record-breaking volumes over 2023-2025

Swiss Life Asset Managers has hired Christian Topp to lead its infrastructure equity solutions with a focus on fundraising and growth of third-party business

Phoenix Group has provided £210m investment to City Property Glasgow, a wholly owned subsidiary of Glasgow City Council (GCC) to support the council’s recently settled equal pay liability

Danish pension insurance company, Velliv, returned DKK 79m after tax in 2022, it has revealed in its annual report

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) completed £4.1bn of new business premiums in 2022, including bulk annuity transactions with the IMI pension fund and British American Tobacco UK Pension Fund, according to its annual report

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) CEO Michael Consedine is stepping down effective 30 April 2023

L&G and Lifetri are to enter into a long-term strategic relationship under which the former will support the latter as it expands to write further Dutch pension risk transfer (PRT) business for defined benefit arrangements

A total 2.6% of EEA insurers’ direct corporate bond and equity investments are aligned with the EU Taxonomy of sustainable activities while another 15.5% are eligible, according to figures published by EIOPA

Fee pressure for asset managers operating in the European general account insurance market is easing, according to Cerulli’s latest research, with just 10% of asset managers seeing decreasing fees as a significant obstacle to growing their business, compared to 42% in the previous year

DWS and Nippon Life have extended their strategic alliance for another five years

Swiss Re reached 95% of its year-end 2024 target to hold at least US$4bn in green, social and sustainability bonds in 2022

The IAIS has published a consultation on climate risk, the first in a package of three consultations aimed at promoting a globally consistent supervisory approach to address climate-related risks in the insurance sector

PIC has invested £50m in Portsmouth Water to fund the construction of the Havant Thicket Reservoir, the first reservoir to be built in the UK since the 1990s

AIA invested US$6.3bn and US$4.3bn in healthcare and ESG bonds in 2022 as part of the sustainable investment pillar of its ESG strategy

Some 20% of Phoenix Group’s listed equity and credit portfolio is exposed to high climate transition risk sectors, such as energy, utilities, industrials and materials, according to the life insurer’s Climate Report 2022

The National Association of Insurers of Ukraine (NAIU) has joined Insurance Europe as an associate member

Despite US insurance companies’ minimal exposure to bonds issued by the now-shuttered Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the failure highlights for insurers the importance of managing enterprise, asset-liability and liquidity risks, according to an AM Best commentary

US life insurance and annuity writers posted a 17% increase in net income to $31.7bn through Q3 2022, as compared with the same prior year period, driven mainly by a 7% rise in premium and annuity considerations, according to AM Best

Robeco has launched the Robeco Sustainable Senior Loan Fund (SLF), its second closed-ended private debt fund and one of the first to credibly integrate sustainability into private debt investments

Defined benefit (DB) pension scheme trustees have been urged to focus on the detail in insurance firms' climate reporting when selecting a firm for risk transfer, after research from Hymans Robertson highlighted key data limitations

Ping An’s responsible investment priorities are aligned to the Chinese government’s green transition policy, the insurer’s chief investment officer (CIO) Benjamin Deng has said

Rising interest rates have hit the value of Phoenix Group’s bond holdings, with the value of the assets it manages plummeting by £46bn, from £310bn in 2021 to £259bn in 2022

Higher potential capital charges for US life insurers that invest in collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) from a recent proposal by the NAIC are not expected to meaningfully affect the investment portfolios of the aggregate US life industry, Fitch Ratings has said

The Bank of England is to study climate-related capital further, as it is not yet sure whether it needs to require insurers and banks to set aside longer-term capital buffers to provide for the consequences of climate change

Zurich increased its investment in climate solutions by 6% to US$8.7bn in 2022, and plans to invest 5% of its proprietary investment portfolio to impact investments by 2025

Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) has appointed Moiz Khan as head of investment solutions, EMEA

Aviva’s operating profits surged by 35% to £2.2bn in 2022

The IAIS has agreed on the criteria that will be used to assess whether the Aggregation Method (AM) provides comparable outcomes to the Insurance Capital Standard (ICS)

China’s State Council has submitted an institutional reform plan to lawmakers which includes establishing the State Financial Regulatory Administration, and will thus result in the CBIRC being dismantled

The boom in Just Group’s pensions buyout deals has helped boost its underlying profits by 19% for 2022, it has announced

A risk and evidence-based approach must be pursued around the prudential treatment of sustainability risks, and to maintain Solvency II’s risk-based nature, Insurance Europe has argued in its response to a discussion paper by EIOPA on the subject

L&G has seen its operating profit rise 12% to £2,523m for 2022, returns on equity edged higher to 20.7% from 20.5%, and financial strength improved further, with Solvency II (SII) capital coverage leaping from 187% to a record 236%

The UK life sector will continue to maintain strong capitalisation despite the government’s proposals to loosen Solvency II (SII) rules to release capital for insurers to invest more in long-term assets, Fitch Ratings has said.

The trustees of the Spirent Communications plc Staff Pension & Life Assurance scheme have completed a £142m buy-in with PIC, meaning that all defined benefit (DB) liabilities for the scheme have now been fully insured

Full scheme transactions now “dominate” the defined benefit (DB) pensions bulk annuity landscape, constituting all £10bn worth of deals made so far this year, XPS Pension Group has revealed

The US P&C industry’s estimated net investment income grew $16.9bn, to an estimated $73bn in 2022, AM Best has said

Investment teams in the top quartile of gender diversity outperform the bottom quartile by 45bps per annum in terms of net excess returns, new analysis released by WTW has revealed

MEDVIDA Partners, the international life insurance business formerly known as CNP Partners, has appointed two new directors in Spain and Italy

Total assets of euro area insurance corporations decreased to €8,075bn in Q4 2022, from €8,265bn in Q3 2022, latest figures published by the European Central Bank have shown

Legal & General Capital (Legal & General) has invested in the impact investment advisory firm ImpactA Global (ImpactA)

bfinance has announced two new senior hires following the firm’s recent management buyout

Aon has announced that Cathy Lewis has joined the firm as a partner in its UK investment team

Royal London Mutual Insurance Society (RLMIS) Limited, as an asset owner, has been awarded signatory status under the Financial Reporting Council’s UK Stewardship Code

The pension scheme buy-in market is forecast to record a paradigm shift in 2023 amid a wave of new business volumes, new research by Hymans Robertson has indicated

Just Group has completed a £513m full scheme buy-in with the trustee of the GKN Group pension scheme (No. 4), the largest DB de-risking transaction completed by the insurer.

Swiss Life increased its net profit in 2022 by 16% to CHF 1.46bn, and the value of new business increased to CHF 497m from CHF 482m from a year earlier

French life insurance premiums reached €14.1bn in January 2023, their second highest historical level for the month of January, according to France Assureurs

Total assets of Chinese insurance companies amounted to RMB 27.1trn at the end of Q4 2022, an increase of RMB 2.3trn and up by 9.1% from the beginning of the year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has said

The combined market share of state-owned general insurers in India continues to witness a declining trend, falling from 51.3% in 2017 to 40.8% in 2021 as the insurers see significant losses in the motor and personal accident and health (PA&H) insurance lines, GlobalData has said

Global asset managers controlling trillions of dollars are failing to invest in a way that will protect climate, biodiversity and people, ShareAction has said

Most US institutional investors still want a majority of their investment portfolios to be actively managed, Cerulli has found

Rothesay has become a signatory to the Financial Reporting Council’s UK Stewardship Code

MassMutual and Barings have announced plans to transition MassMutual's direct private investments (DPI) and MassMutual Asset Finance (MMAF) to the latter

FWD Group continued to deliver strong organic growth in 2022, with the value of new business recorded at US$823m, up 29% compared to 2021, and it recorded an 83% increase in its 2022 segmental adjusted operating profit before tax which reached US$334m

RSA Group has concluded the largest ever pension bulk annuity transaction with a £6.5bn buy-in for two of its pension schemes with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC)

More than £25bn of bulk annuity transactions were completed between pension schemes and insurers in 2022, according to Legal & General (L&G)

MAPFRE AM, the asset management arm of Spain’s largest insurance Group, has acquired a further 26% equity stake in French ESG specialist mutual fund boutique La Financière Responsable (LFR), taking its total holding to 51% as it targets growth of SRI derived strategies and seeks to boost its international footprint into the French fund market

M&A activity in the global insurance space hit a ten-year high in 2022, with 449 deals completed compared to 418 the previous year, according to Clyde & Co

NN Group and Rivage Investment have launched Rivage Private Debt – Fund for Infrastructure Climate Solutions, a fund seeking to finance infrastructure assets which provide solutions to the considerable challenges raised by climate change

Sycomore Asset Management has hired the former head of multi-asset at BNP Paribas Asset Management as its new chief executive

Asset risk is still the main component in UK annuity writers’ target capital, representing nearly a half of total undiversified Prism Factor-Based Model (FBM) target capital at end-2021, Fitch Ratings has said

One quarter of European institutional investors expect to hire a new manager for alternative asset classes in the next year, research from Coalition Greenwich has shown

The PRA is expecting to issue two Solvency UK consultations, one in June and one in September, “rather than a Big Bang implementation”, the regulator’s chief executive Sam Woods has said

The Wiltshire (Bristol) Limited Retirement Benefits Scheme, a legacy arrangement sponsored by Auto Trader, has agreed a £15m full scheme buy-in with Just Group, covering the pension liabilities of over 150 pensioner and deferred members.

Varma's return on investments in 2022 was -4.9%, down from 18.5% in 2021, its latest financial results have shown

German insurance companies currently hold €528bn in Spezialfonds, latest figures published by the German Investment Funds Association (BVI) have revealed

FWD Group is to enter the Malaysian life insurance market following the signing of an agreement to invest in a majority stake in Gibraltar BSN

American Equity has ramped up its private asset allocation to 22% with around $1.4bn sourced in Q4 2022, its latest financial figures have revealed

Legal & General filed a lawsuit against Glencore in London's High Court last week concerning investor losses after the Swiss mining and commodities group admitted to multiple bribery offences in 2022

Finnish pension insurance company, Elo, has revealed that its investments returned -3.7% in 2022, down from 14% in 2021

The pension scheme for an unnamed manufacturing business has agreed a £53m buyout with Standard Life, covering 235 pensioners and 163 deferred members

CNP Assurances and its subsidiaries invested €25.2bn in the environment as of the end of 2022, meeting the previous €25bn target three years in advance

The French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) has published its supervisory priorities for 2023, giving priority to monitoring the risks arising from macroeconomic uncertainties linked to the Ukraine war, the rise in interest rates and the rise in inflation

Phoenix Group has assigned £338m of with-profits investment funds to a new multi-asset climate solution which will be managed by Robeco

More than half of institutional investors that currently invest in private credit are sticking with plans to increase allocations to the asset class, and over 40% plan to expand their manager rosters in the next three years, new research published by Coalition Greenwich has shown

Ping An P&C has launched its first ocean carbon sink index insurance policy

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has announced its strategic priorities for 2023

Corebridge Financial has appointed Lisa Longino as chief investment officer (CIO), effective immediately

AXA Hong Kong and Macau has appointed Fanda Ho as chief investment officer (CIO)

Legal & General has agreed a buy-in transaction with the Amey Services section of the Citrus Pension Plan totalling c.£6.5m, and securing the benefits of 70 retired and deferred members

Brookfield Reinsurance is to acquire Argo in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.1bn

Allianz Group is adapting its guidelines to pragmatically provide insurance and investment in renewable energy projects

Folksam has acquired property in central Stockholm from Zurich Insurance for SEK 565.5m as it continues its expansion in real estate

The UK’s FCA is to target “outlier firms” over their ESG and stewardship practices as it looks to crack down on greenwashing concerns

The trustee of the Arcadia Group and Arcadia Group Senior Executive Pension Schemes have agreed an £850m buy-in with Aviva, securing benefits in excess of Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levels for 8,800 members

A coalition of asset managers and asset owners representing $5trn in assets is launching a framework to assess sovereign bond issuers on climate change

Zurich’s business operating profit (BOP) has risen by 12% to US$6.5bn, the highest since 2007, according to its latest financial update

The trustees of the British American Tobacco UK Pension Fund have agreed a third and final buy-in with the Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), covering the remainder of its uninsured liabilities

Prudential Financial has reported a roughly 26% fall in fourth-quarter adjusted profit as a global market rout pressured the insurer's assets under management (AuM)

Insurance Europe has declared its lack of support concerning the IAIS’ decision to introduce five new ancillary liquidity indicators as part of its Individual Insurer Monitoring (IIM) assessment methodology

Storebrand’s solvency ratio has strengthened by 10 percentage points to 184%, and group profits have been recorded at NOK 841m for Q4 2022

MetLife Investment Management (MIM) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Raven Capital Management, a privately-owned alternative investment firm

The European insurance sector is displaying an overall resilience despite high macro and market risks, EIOPA’s latest Risk Dashboard based on Solvency II data from Q3 2022 has revealed

Phoenix Group has joined the asset owner-led board of the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI)

Just Group is continuing its commitment to deliver 15% growth in underlying operating profit per annum over the medium term under IFRS 17, and a greater than 10% return on equity

Private equity is expected to remain the most in-demand alternative asset class among institutional investors over the next two to three years, survey results published by State Street Corporation have shown

Crédit Agricole Assurances has acquired 50% of a renewable projects portfolio with a total capacity of 234MW from TotalEnergies

The trustee of the IMI 2014 Deferred Fund has agreed a £175m partial buy-in with the Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), covering liabilities for the remaining 1,378 uninsured scheme members, around 97% of which are deferred members

Just Group has completed an £8m full buy-in with The Veitchi (Holdings) Limited Retirement Benefits Scheme, securing the benefits of its remaining 82 uninsured members

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published its Supervisory Convergence Plan for 2023, which outlines EIOPA’s intentions to build a common supervisory culture and consistent supervisory practices in the EU

MetLife has reported a 33% drop in Q4 adjusted profit as market turmoil has hit investment returns

Aspen has become a signatory of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

Macif Impact ESS, Macif’s responsible investment vehicle, has invested €500,000 in Vitanovae, a company pooling surfaces, resources, and services to make its homes, buildings, and third places, accessible to as many people as possible, while guaranteeing a high level of comfort and significantly reducing the environmental impact

More than half of insurers in the UK, France, and Germany, plan to increase their allocations to both emerging market equity and emerging market debt over the next 12 months, Cerulli research has shown

abrdn has appointed Peter Branner as chief investment officer (CIO), effective 1 May 2023

AIG has fired Mark Lyons from his position as interim chief financial officer (CFO) and executive vice president, global chief actuary, and head of portfolio management, after the company became aware that he violated his confidentiality/non-disclosure obligations to the firm

The draft European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), developed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), meet their objectives but some aspects could be enhanced upon, according to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)

The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA) has updated its Target-Setting Protocol to now cover private assets target-setting including commercial real estate lending and reporting on sovereign bonds

Rothesay has completed a £762m buy-in with the 1967 Section of the Morrisons Retirement Saver Plan

Zurich headquartered investment manager, Twelve Capital, is set to develop a life ILS investment offering, through a strategic tie-up with specialist life ILS boutique Farsight Partners

Legal & General CEO Nigel Wilson has announced his intention to retire

New York Life has announced that Naïm Abou-Jaoudé has been named CEO of New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM), joining from Candriam, a global multi-specialist asset manager

Blackstone has confirmed that UC Investments is to invest an additional $500m in its Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) common shares

The impact of current high inflation on the profitability of German private health insurers’ should be limited, Fitch Ratings has stated, due to their ability to adjust prices

The Global Federation of Insurance Associations (GFIA) has written to the Argentinian insurance supervisor (SSN), to express concerns about recently implemented rules that have begun causing “serious issues” with the payment of reinsurance premiums to foreign companies

Nippon Life has agreed to invest an additional commitment of $1bn in Resolution Life -a global life and annuity insurance consolidation business – following the recently announced strategic partnership between Resolution Life and Blackstone

The US P&C industry’s aggregate leverage ratio climbed from 19.5% to 23% in Q3 2022 from year-end 2021, AM Best research has shown, due to rising interest rates, increased unrealised loses and declines in capital

Sixty-four per cent of US insurers expect an increase in investment risk tolerance in 2023, according to a new survey US life and P&C insurers, sponsored by Conning

About one out of four US institutional asset owners expect to use an outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) in some capacity over the next 24 months

The Tioxide Pension Fund has agreed a £430m buy-in with Legal & General (L&G) Assurance Society, securing the benefits of around 2,700 retirees and deferred members.

Comparing insurers’ IFRS 17 results will be difficult initially due to differences between companies’ approaches under the accounting standard, which took effect for most insurers on 1 January 2023, Fitch Ratings has said

Dutch insurers reduced the absolute carbon footprint (financed emissions) of their equity portfolios by 40% between 2017-2020, according to analysis published by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)

Schroders has strengthened its fixed income team with the appointment of credit specialist Josh Panton

Insurers are making progress in disclosing their preparedness and response to climate change, according to the ClimateWise Principles Independent Review 2022

More than nine-out-of-ten (93%) of global institutional investors actively consider ESG and sustainability in their real assets investment decisions, with 17% considering it a critical factor, according to new research from Aviva Investors

The UK’s life insurance sector’s solvency capital requirement (SCR) coverage fell from 162% to 123% under the PRA’s Insurance Stress Test 2022 (IST 2022), with the general insurance sector’s SCR coverage remaining above 120% in all scenarios

Swiss Life has successfully placed three tranches of senior bonds totalling CHF 600m

Baloise has successfully issued a nine-year senior green bond with a coupon of 2.20% for a total size of CHF 175m due in January 2032

The Geneva Association has outlined three forces that could make inflation ‘stick’, as well as the pros and cons of high inflation for insurers

US municipal bonds are “well-positioned” for investors pursuing a thematic ESG approach, the Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) has said

The amount of assets gathered by the Asia-Pacific insurance industry in the last two decades consists of 26% of institutional investable assets in the region, thus bringing in sizable investment income for insurance companies, research published by Cerulli has revealed

The defined benefit (DB) pensions de-risking market is expected to see one of its biggest years on record, according to analysis from WTW, with at least £40bn in bulk annuity transactions and £20bn in longevity hedges predicted to be completed

Kooperativa poist'ovňa, part of Vienna Insurance Group (VIG), has purchased 100% of the shares in 365.life d. s. s. operated by 365.bank in Slovakia

Just 17% of European asset owners currently target biodiversity-themed strategies when investing sustainably, but 57% plan to invest in broad thematic ESG strategies with a biodiversity focus in the next 12 to 24 months, new research by Cerulli has shown

Prudential has announced the appointment of Diana Guzmán as its new director of group ESG

The United Nations-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) has launched the Alliance’s first Target-Setting Protocol at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davis, Switzerland

The British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) has transacted a third pension buy-in policy with Legal & General (L&G) for £2bn

PIC has completed a partial buy-in with The Amey OS Pension Scheme, insuring around £400m of pension liabilities

Infranity has acquired a portfolio of 13 photovoltaic plants in Spain and Portugal from Foresight

An overhaul to insurance rules “increases risk” and could result in a corporate failure that ultimately hits the public purse, the Bank of England (BoE) has warned

The Financial and Accounting Department of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has issued a ‘Notice on the Inauthentic Issue of Solvency Data of Four Insurance Companies

Swiss Re has appointed Velina Peneva as group chief investment officer and member of the group executive committee, effective 1 April 2023

The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has called for the European Supervisory Authorities’ (ESAs) work on greenwashing to differentiate between misleading with intent and uncertainty on regulations

Vietnam’s life insurance industry is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8% from VND159.2trn ($6.9bn) in 2021 to VND410.3trn ($17bn) in 2026 in terms of gross written premium (GWP), latest forecasts published by GlobalData have revealed

Lauri Saraste has been appointed as director; development, regulation & ESG – group investments, at LähiTapiola

European insurers’ Solvency II ratios are unlikely to be boosted by the late-2022 rise in equity markets, according to investment bank Jefferies

CNP Assurances has successfully launched its first subordinated sustainable bond for an amount of €500m

Singaporean insurer, Income Insurance, has handed over management of its existing $3bn real estate portfolio to CBRE Investment Management (CBRE IM)

MAPFRE has signed on to the UN-convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA) with the aim of transitioning its investment portfolios to net-zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and becoming a Net-Zero company by 2050

Aviva has completed a £400m buy-in with The Interserve Pension Scheme, securing the benefits of more than 7,000 of its members

The PRA is to launch a thematic review this year to seek assurance that associated risk management disciplines are keeping pace with any increase in bulk purchase annuity (BPA) growth ambitions

Germany’s largest public insurer, the Versicherungskammer Group, has acquired more than 33,000 square metres of real estate space in Munich from MEAG

MassMutual’s chief investment officer, Tim Corbett, will retire after successfully leading the company’s investment strategy and overseeing its General Investment Account (GIA) for the past 12 years

Nassau Financial Group and Angel Island Capital Management (AIC) have announced a merger

US annuity provider, SILAC Insurance Company, and Hildene Capital Management, a credit focused asset manager with around $12bn of assets under management, have entered into a long-term strategic alliance

Italian total life and non-life premium income amounted to €73.6bn in H1 2022, down by 5.4% compared to H1 2021, according to latest figures published by Italy’s Institute for insurance supervision, IVASS

French life insurance premiums reached €12.4bn in November 2022, the best month of November ever recorded, according to France Assureurs

Publicly traded US life/annuity insurers are taking a more-cautious approach to issuing debt given rising interest rates, and instead have put a greater focus on strengthening their enterprise risk management, corporate governance and stress testing capabilities, according to AM Best

US insurers held approximately $216bn in book/adjusted carrying value (BACV) of collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) at year-end 2021, an increase of 12% from $192.2bn at year-end 2020, latest figures published by the NAIC have shown

Institutional investors with $2.2trn in assets are requesting commodity giant Glencore to display how its development of thermal coal mines meets the goals of the Paris climate accord to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees

Saudi Arabia’s general insurance industry is to hit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2% until 2026, according to estimates from GlobalData

Churchill Asset Management has announced that it has completed fundraising for its Churchill Junior Capital Opportunities Fund II with $737m of limited partner commitments

Allianz France and L’Auxiliaire have been confirmed as new subscribers to the Lyon-Saint-Etienne Metropolitan Industrial Seed Fund

The Hong Kong life insurance industry is set to return to growth in 2023, according to analysis from GlobalData

AXA has announced that it has successfully placed €750m of Reg S senior unsecured notes, that are due in 2033, with institutional investors

Royal London has received high court approval to consolidate the Royal Liver Sub-Fund and the Phoenix Life Assurance Ltd (PLAL) Sub-Fund into the Royal London Open Fund

Chubb has announced the launch of a new global climate business unit

UC Investments and Blackstone have announced a strategic venture that will see the investment of $4bn in the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) common shares

Skandia has invested SEK 500m in a bond issued by Svensk Exportkredit

Guardian Life has announced that Nicholas Liolis is joining the insurer as chief investment officer (CIO)

The portion of advisers who use US fixed income exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is continuing to grow, a new report from Cerulli has indicated

Legal & General Capital has announced that it committed around £5bn towards levelling up UK towns and cities across 2022

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has acquired a 10% stake in Doverie, the pension fund in Bulgaria in which the Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) holds a majority stake

EIOPA has published a new supervisory statement on inflation which addresses inflation-related issues in reinsurance from a prudential perspective

Nathalie Aufauvre has been appointed as secretary general of the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR)

European insurers are in support of the EU’s sustainability agenda, Insurance Europe has stated, after the group published its views on the integration of sustainability risks in Solvency II

Record high levels of inflation and the consequent cost of living crisis will be the greatest challenge faced by the insurance industry going into 2023, according to GlobalData

Varma has announced it is to adopt biodiversity loss mitigation as a sustainability guideline alongside climate work

Portugal’s general insurance industry is set to grow to €7.6bn ($9.3bn) by 2026, GlobalData has estimated

SCOR has announced that it has renewed a contingent capital facility for three years that would provide the group with additional capital of up to €300m coverage

Phoenix Group has invested £15m in Open Finance and payments platform, Moneyhub

Concerns have been raised over references to reinsurance in the Dutch national bank’s consultation on insurer resolvability, according to Insurance Europe

MetLife Investment Management (MIM) has completed the acquisition of Affirmative Investment Management (AIM)

Günther Thallinger has been re-elected as the chair of the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

Systemic risk in the global insurance sector on aggregate remains moderate, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has said, however there is an upward trend in insurers’ total systemic risk scores, in particular, driven by increased exposures to illiquid, difficult-to-value assets, over-the-counter derivatives, short-term funding and intra-financial assets

Macif is strengthening its investment strategy to fight against deforestation caused by the cultivation of palm oil

Munich Re is aiming for a consolidated profit of roughly €4bn for the 2023 financial year under the new IFRS 17 reporting standard, with a profit of around €3.3bn expected in the reinsurance field of business

Athora has completed its third capital raise, securing a total of approximately €2.75bn of additional permanent equity capital commitments from new and existing shareholders, including commitments of over €2bn announced on 2 November 2022

The UK Government has today announced a delay in the implementation of the country’s green taxonomy

Gothaer is expanding its portfolio to include investments in natural capital, with the first investment being $100m in the Natural Capital Fund.

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has invested £40m as debt in Housing Solutions, which owns and manages c.7,500 properties in the South East of England

World leaders have been urged by 150 financial institutions representing more than US$24trn in assets to adopt a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework at the UN Biodiversity Conference COP15

Institutional investors, fund distributors and investment consultants are warning some asset managers that they are not doing enough to differentiate their firms and offerings from competitors, Coalition Greenwich has said

Rothesay has completed a £1.2bn full scheme buy-in with The Bank Section of the Co-operative Pension Scheme

Bermudan insurers with high asset allocations to illiquid and other non-traditional assets can expect intensive and comprehensive supervisory engagement as part of the Bermudan Monetary Authority’s (BMA) upcoming proposed enhancements of regulatory and supervisory regimes

Allianz Capital Partners, on behalf of Allianz insurance companies (Allianz), has signed an agreement to acquire a minority stake in the Finnish project developer Ren-Gas, and provide funding valued at €25m

Tatjana Helbing is to become chief investment officer (CIO) of the Zurich Group Germany on 1 January 2023

Forty-four per cent of US institutional investors have indicated a desire to increase their allocations to alternative investments, according to Cerulli

Institutional investors from around the world are heading towards 2023 with a “sombre view”, according to Natixis Investment Managers (IM), with 85% believing they are or will be in recession next year

Dutch insurers have sold €23bn worth of assets on balance so far this year, with about three quarters of the proceeds used to meet the margin requirements under derivatives contracts, latest figures published by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) have shown

Talanx Group is seeking to raise its net income by 25% to about €1.6bn by 2025, as part of its three-year strategy

Sixty-two per cent of Asian institutional investors in Asia Pacific ex-Japan have indicated their interest in partnering with each other for knowledge sharing and creating tools and analytics around climate change, latest research published by Cerulli has shown

The Thinking Ahead Institute (TAI) has been selected by the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) to assist it in researching and assessing the appropriate level of resources that institutional investors should be prepared to dedicate to stewardship

The Coats UK Pension Scheme has completed a £350m bulk purchase annuity buy-in transaction with Aviva, securing the benefits of around 3,700 members

Phoenix Group is on track to deliver £1.2bn of incremental new business long-term cash generation in 2022, primarily through its Standard Life businesses, which contracted £4.8bn of bulk purchase annuity (BPA) premiums for the year, up from £5.6bn in 2021.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Taiwan Insurance Institute (TII)

French life insurance net inflows were recorded at €-0.3bn in October 2022, due to a slowdown in premiums, according to France Assureurs

EIOPA is taking a step-by-step approach to assessing whether a dedicated prudential treatment of assets and activities associated with environmental or social objectives under Solvency II would be warranted

Nordic financial services firm, Nordea, has completed the purchase of Danish insurance company Topdanmark’s life and pensions business, Topdanmark Life

Allianz Global Investors has announced that Jenny Zeng will join the firm in the New Year to succeed David Tan as CIO Asia fixed income

A number of global insurers have signed up to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) 'Advance', a collaborative stewardship initiative on social issues and human rights

Registration is now open for the 2023 Sustainable Investment Summit, a one-day conference offering pension funds, insurance companies, charities, and corporates, the opportunity to both learn and network alongside their peers at such a key time for the sustainable investment industry

The proportion of SFDR Article 8 and 9 unit-linked funds on insurers’ platforms in Europe is expected to grow by an average of 15 percentage points to 32% over the next 12 to 24 months, therefore creating opportunities for external asset managers, latest research by Cerulli has shown

Zurich's subsidiary, Zurich Investments Life S.p.A., has completed the sale of its life and pensions back book, composed of both traditional and unit-linked policies, to the Portuguese insurance company GamaLife – Companhia de Seguros de Vida, S.A. (GamaLife)

Dutch insurer, a.s.r., has launched and priced a €1bn subordinated Tier 2 capital instrument

The share of investments managed by German insurance companies based on ESG criteria has increased to 88% up to 82% in 2021, according to latest figures published by the German Insurance Association (GDV)

The financial leverage of Europe’s leading insurers rose to a record high of 28.2% on average in H1 2022, according to Moody’s

Twenty-eight per cent of professional investors believe institutional investors will dramatically increase allocations to arbitrage hedge funds, while 46% believe they will slightly increase them over the next 12 months, new research published by Managing Partners Group (MPG) has shown

SCOR has completed a £1.7bn longevity reinsurance transaction covering the pensions of over 15,000 members of the defined benefit section of the Balfour Beatty Pension Fund

Dutch insurer, Achmea, has printed a €500m green senior bond, the inaugural issuance under its Green Finance Framework (GFF)

Aviva Investors has made an £80m (€91.5m) investment in UK social housing provider Cross Keys Homes (CKH), on behalf of Aviva UK Life’s annuity business

Total assets of Chinese insurance companies amounted to RMB 26.7trn at the end of Q3 2022, an increase of RMB 1.8trn and up by 7.3% from the beginning of the year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has revealed

Just 6% of institutional investors globally say that asset managers excel in communicating and evidencing their ESG approaches, indicating there is an opportunity for other asset managers to step forward as investors look to shake-up their investment manager line-ups, research published by Coalition Greenwich has revealed

Norwegian life insurers have recorded significantly weaker results in Q1 to Q3 2022 compared to the same period last year, with profits before tax falling from NOK 8.5bn to NOK 432m, figures published by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway (Finanstilsynet) have shown

AM Best is maintaining a stable market segment outlook on the US life/annuity insurance industry for 2023, citing factors that include favourable earnings, strong liquidity profiles and strong levels of risk-adjusted capitalisation among carriers

Pictet Asset Management (Pictet AM) has strengthened its fixed income offering with the recruitment of four private debt specialists

Credit fundamentals will worsen in the French non-life insurance sector while remaining broadly unchanged in life in the next 12 months, as insurers adapt to new market and macroeconomic regime, Fitch Ratings has said

Schroders has strengthened its Asia fixed income team with the appointment of a credit specialist

DWS head of the investment division Stefan Kreuzkamp is stepping down, effective the end of 2022, and is leaving the company by mutual agreement after 24 years

The winners of the Insurance Asset Management Awards 2022 were announced last night at a gala ceremony in London

Germany’s largest public insurer and seventh largest primary insurer, Versicherungskammer Group, has joined the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA), and committed to making its investment portfolio climate-neutral by 2050

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has published liquidity metrics as an ancillary indicator for its Global Monitoring Exercise (GME)

The UK’s Solvency II reform is likely to drive investment portfolio restructuring, AM Best has said, with the agency also emphasising that the expansion of asset options for UK annuity writers should assist the industry in sourcing assets to meet expected high demand for pension risk transfer (PRT) solutions over the coming years

The Helvetia Venture Fund is acquiring a stake in the start-up Urban Connect

BlueOrchard Finance has launched a listed impact strategy for Daido Life Insurance of the T&D Insurance Group

CNP Assurances has strengthened its commitment to biodiversity by supporting the launch of a thematic fund initiated by La Banque Postale Asset Management with Tocqueville Finance, with a €120m investment

European insurance M&A deals for 2022 continue to run at an all-time high of 292, compared to 280 in Q1-Q3 2021 and 190 during the same period in 2020, as investors pursue opportunities to deploy unspent capital despite geopolitical tensions, economic turmoil and the rising cost of debt financing, according to FTI Consulting

Alexander Sarrigeorgiou, chairman of the Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies, and chair and CEO of Eurolife, has been elected vice-president of Insurance Europe, with a mandate running until June 2025.

AM Best is maintaining its negative market segment outlook on Argentina’s insurance market, citing a difficult macroeconomic environment

The US pension risk transfer market is expected to close at $27bn in Q3, the largest Q3 on record and the second largest in market history, according to Legal & General Retirement America's (LGRA) latest Pension Risk Transfer Monitor

Legal & General has agreed a £400m buy-in with the TT Group (1993) Pension Scheme, securing the benefits of circa 5,000 retirees and deferred members

EIOPA has underlined its commitment to supporting the insurance and pensions sectors in tackling climate change as the the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) draws to a close

Varma has revealed it is starting to monitor more closely the amount of financing that banks acting as its investment brokers provide to companies that rely on coal and oil in their operations

CNP Assurances has confirmed its acquisition of the shares held by Caixa Seguridade in CNP Consórcio S.A. Administradora de Consórcios, raising its shareholding to 100%

Baloise has confirmed it has successfully issued a six and a half year senior bond with a coupon of 2.20%, for a total size of CHF 225m

The Chancellor has announced new plans to reform the regulations around Solvency II rules.

In his Autumn Statement today, Jeremy Hunt said the move will be part of a bid to unlock “tens of billions of pounds” of investment from the UK’s insurers

Annuity sales have been on a tear in 2022 largely due to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate rises, which have allowed insurers to raise crediting rates on their fixed and indexed annuities, according to Cerulli

The general insurance industry in Singapore is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.2% to 2026, GlobalData has stated

abrdn has announced the launch of its Inflation Linked Infrastructure Debt (ILID) fund, an evergreen, UK-focused strategy for institutional investors

The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company has announced a $50m investment in a farmland strategy fund managed by Nuveen Natural Capital

Ageas has announced that Wim Guilliams is to succeed Christophe Boizard as the firm’s CFO

The three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), the EBA, EIOPA and ESMA, have today published a Call for Evidence on greenwashing

Just 56% of investors are either “very” or “quite” satisfied with their overall performance so far, a new study by bfinance has indicated

Insurance Ireland has welcomed the publication of the third implementation report of the Action Plan for insurance reform

Talanx has reported that it is on course to achieve its targets for the year, having significantly increased its its premium income and consolidated profit in the first nine months of the year

EIB Global, the dedicated arm for outside the EU of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group and Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) have announced a $100m investment for renewable energy projects

AIG has announced that it has entered into an agreement to secure Peter Zaffino’s employment until 10 November 2027

The interest rate applicable to earnings-related pension insurance contributions is to rise to 2.45% at the beginning of next year, according to Varma

PIC and Octopus Real Estate have announced they are to build a £115m retirement community in Hertfordshire

Enstar has announced that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries has closed its loss portfolio transfer transaction with specialty insurance underwriter, Argo Group

Varma has made a €50m investment in an emerging markets corporate bond fund

Insurers are contributing up to $5.5trn per year to global financial resilience through insurance claims and benefit payouts, the Geneva Association has estimated

Aviva has reported that the value of new business (VNB) in the UK and Ireland life insurance space totalled £466m in Q3, a figure up 46% on last year

The Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative has announced that a total of 86 asset managers have disclosed their initial targets for the proportion of assets managed in line with achieving net zero by 2050, the largest group of firms to date

Baloise and UBS have strengthened their strategic partnership within the shared home and living ecosystem by increasing their stake in homeowner platform, Houzy

The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance has welcomed plans for a UN roadmap to prevent net zero from being undermined by “false claims, ambiguity and greenwash”

Munich Re has reported that it achieved a profit of €527m in Q3, taking its total to €1.90bn for the first nine months of the year

Seventy-six per cent of European asset managers believe that highlighting the ESG capabilities in their marketing will grow in importance in the next two years, according to a new study

Fitch Ratings has stated that the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) stance on capital calls will not affect instrument ratings

Generali has reached an agreement with Portuguese postal services group, CTT Group, for the distribution of life and P&C policies through the CTT Group network

M&G has announced an investment in medical diagnostic company, Osler Diagnostics

The solvency capital requirements for insurers in the UK may be relaxed in the near future following the September 2022 mini-budget, although UK insurers are not coming close to the existing limits, according to analysis by GlobalData

a.s.r. has acquired the Strekdammen wind farm from Pondera and Rebel

Monument Re has announced that its Isle of Man subsidiary, Monument International Life Assurance, has completed the acquisition of the closed book portfolio of Zurich International Life’s Singapore long-term life insurance business

Schroders has announced the appointment of Willem Schramade as its new head of sustainability client advisory

Talanx has announced it is expanding its activities in its core market of Turkey through a planned acquisition and joint venture with the Fiba Group, one of Turkey's largest companies

The Bank of England (BoE) has increased interest rates by a further 0.75%, marking the largest single rise to rates for 33 years

Insurers’ underwriting and investment strategies are to be increasingly influenced by ESG considerations in the coming years, a new report from Fitch Ratings has stated

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has announced a £200m investment that will finance the construction of 667 residential apartments in Birmingham on an existing brownfield site

LGIM Real Assets has announced a £70m investment in Saxon Weald in the form of sustainability-linked financing

AIA has announced that its value of new business (VONB) increased by 7% in the third quarter to $741m

New mandate activities among Asian institutional investors are emerging in H2, according to a new report from Cerulli

The Chinese life insurance industry is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3% a year until 2026, according to forecasts from GlobalData

EIOPA has published a new methodology for “assessing value for money” in the unit-linked market

Robeco has announced the launch of a new biodiversity strategy

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has invested £50m in debt issued by the University of Bath

Lemonade has announced that it has joined the Association of British Insurers (ABI) as its latest member

Swiss Re has reported a net loss of $285m for the first nine months of 2022, driven by a $442m net loss in the third quarter

Varma has reported that half of its investments in the period between January and September generated positive returns

Nippon Life has announced a new ¥400m blue bond investment issued by Japanese seafood company, Maruha Nichiro Corporation

Proposed rules by the FCA to tackle "greenwashing" are credit positive for asset managers, Moody’s Investors Service has said, as “it will create a more robust labelling and disclosure framework for UK asset managers and boost consumer confidence in sustainable investing, supporting the industry’s growth and revenue expansion”

Aegon has reached an agreement with a.s.r. to combine its Dutch pension, life and non-life insurance, banking and mortgage origination activities with a.s.r.

Finnish pension insurance company, Elo, has reported negative returns on its investments of -4.9% for the first nine months of 2022

China's largest insurer by market value, Ping An Insurance Group, has reported a 31.5% fall in third-quarter profit on weak investment income

Chubb’s net income fell from $1.83bn in Q3 2021 to $812m in Q3 2022, its latest financial results have shown

Aflac Incorporated has announced that Eric Kirsch, executive vice president and global chief investment officer; president of Aflac Global Investments, will retire on 31 March 2023

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has made its fourth investment, of £40m, in secured debt issued by mhs homes, a provider of social housing based in Kent

CNP Assurances has said a major effort by its European subsidiaries will help it meet its target of €25bn in green investments before end-2025, and it is also committed to doubling its impact investments to €1bn within the same timeframe

Danish insurer, Topdanmark, saw its life and pension business deliver growth in premium income of 6.5% during the first three quarters of 2022, its interim report has revealed

Dai-ichi Life has prepaid Tranche B (JPY 144bn) of its perpetual subordinated loan which was recapitalised on 8 october 2015, and at the same time refinanced with a new, perpetual subordinated loan worth JPY 64bn in order to strengthen its capital base

Financial organisations in the Netherlands have developed and published guidelines for the more than 50 financial institutions that signed the Climate Commitment in 2019

The Chinese general insurance market is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.2% from CNY 1,367.7bn ($212.1bn) in 2021 to CNY 1,943.1bn ($304.4bn) in 2026, in terms of direct written premiums, GlobalData has said

The vast majority (95%) of pension schemes have seen their buyout position improve following recent market volatility, with 23% seeing an improvement of more than 20% in their position, according to research by XPS Pensions Group

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has told insurers and banks “further progress is needed by all firms” in embedding climate risk management, and repeated its observation around the lack of robust data to support the process

Travelers has reported a 20% fall in quarterly profit, hurt by hurricane-related claims and lower returns on its investments

Allianz, AXA and Axis Capital have ranked best for their coal exit policies, according to Insure Our Future’s annual scorecard, whilst Aviva, Hannover Re and Munich Re have come out on top for their oil and gas exclusions

A £13m full scheme buy-in has been agreed between Legal & General (L&G) Assurance Society Limited and the Jarvis Limited Pension Plan

The Singapore life insurance industry is estimated to grow by 13.3% in 2022, in terms of gross written premiums (GWP)

The general insurance industry in the Netherlands will be worth €77.6bn by 2026, GlobalData has stated

Phoenix Group has announced a £111m investment in IP Group by way of long maturity private loan notes

AXA IM has announced its commitment to become a net-zero asset manager for its operations by 2050, with an interim target of reducing emissions by 26% by 2025

Talanx AG has issued two bonds with identical terms and conditions with a total volume of €1.25bn

Eight in 10 investors plan to increase their exposure to ESG strategies over the next two years, PwC’s Asset and Wealth Management Survey has revealed

Assets under management (AuM) at the world’s 500 largest asset managers reached a new record of over US$131trn in 2021, according to new research published by Thinking Ahead Institute

Less than a third (28%) of global asset owners with climate-related targets set these targets at asset-class level, research from Ninety One has revealed

The US insurance industry reported $295bn in high-yield bond investments at year-end
2021, an increase of 3% compared to year-end 2020, amid the credit markets recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NAIC has said

Crédit Agricole Assurances is enhancing its commitments for a low-carbon economy

Aegon has successfully completed the divestment of its 50% stake in the Spanish insurance joint venture with Liberbank to Unicaja Banco

Zurich intends to repurchase €500m of 4.25% fixed-to-floating dated subordinated notes due 2043

Zurich has announced the appointment of Penny Seach to the role of group chief underwriting officer

Rothesay has reported a 7% reduction in the carbon intensity (CI) of its investment portfolio

The Taiwanese life insurance industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3%, according to calculations from GlobalData

Scottish Widows has become the first investor in BlackRock's newly launched BlackRock Global Corporate ESG Insights Bond Fund

The Sierra Club, BankTrack and a coalition of 22 advocacy groups have sent an open letter to the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), urging it to update expectations for its members to reflect the latest Race to Zero criteria on net-zero

Resolution Life and Blackstone have announced a strategic partnership to support the continued growth of the former

PIC is to provide £102m of debt financing to support the delivery of new rolling stock to Corelink Rail Infrastructure Limited (Corelink), which will lease the trains to the operator of the West Midlands rail services

US publicly traded insurers have reported more than $200bn of unrealised losses on their fixed income portfolios through Q2 2022, as rising interest rates have diminished bond values, according to AM Best

The Bank of England (BoE) has today widened the scope of its daily gilt purchase operations to also include the purchase of index-linked gilts

The Bank of England (BoE) has increased the daily buying limit of its bond intervention from £5bn to £10bn, in an attempt to calm fears of a pension fund sell-off

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has invested £55m as debt in Clanmil Housing Association (Clanmil)

Varma has joined the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which promotes emission reduction targets based on science

Ardea Investment Management has launched a new software application which allows insurers to optimise their asset allocation across the three competing objectives of return, market risk and regulatory capital as defined under the Solvency II framework

The total US life/health industry’s admitted assets of $8.1bn at the midpoint of 2022 represents a 6.1% drop compared with the same point in 2021, according to a new Best’s Rankings report

The US property/casualty industry’s six-month net premiums written rose 10.3% to $387.25bn in the first half of 2022 as several insurers made big positional gains, according to a new Best’s Ranking report

The sudden need for pension funds to put up large amounts of extra collateral due to tumbling gilt prices will lead more UK DB pension funds to favour pension risk transfer deals with life insurers over LDI arrangements with asset managers, Fitch Ratings has said

Zurich has announced today that Raul Vargas has been appointed CEO of Farmers Group, a wholly owned subsidiary, and as a member of the Zurich Group Executive Committee

Munich Re will no longer invest in or insure contracts/projects exclusively covering the planning, financing, construction or operation of new oil and gas fields, new midstream oil infrastructure and new oil fired power plants, as of 1 April 2023

A total £18bn of bulk annuities and longevity swaps were disclosed in H1 2022, according to Aon’s UK Risk Settlement Market Update, and the firm expects 2022 to be the fourth year in a row that the market surpasses the £25bn mark for bulk annuities

L&G’s solvency coverage ratio (SCR) is estimated to be between 235-240% as at 30 September 2022, the insurer has said, up at least 23 percentage points from HY 2022 (212%)

Nearly two out of three (64%) US and UK institutional investors are ‘very confident’ about alternative asset managers fund raising plans for alternatives over the next 18 months, new research from Ocorian has shown

Former capital and investment director at LV=, Emily Penn, has joined Macquarie Group as managing director

Gothaer has invested €10m in GreenTech company Wegatech

Almost two-thirds (64%) of institutional investors say access to the best ideas and managers is one of the most important benefits of hiring a fiduciary manager (FM) or outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO), according to a CoreData Research study of neatly 300 global institutional investors

French life insurance premiums amounted to €8.6bn in August 2022, down by €1.5bn compared to August 2021, France Assureurs has revealed

Generali has held informal deal talks with Guggenheim Partners on a range of options including a full acquisition of the US investment firm’s asset management business, sources have said

The European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), through the Joint Committee, have developed regulatory technical standards on the content and presentation of information to be provided about the exposure of financial products to investments in fossil gas and nuclear energy

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has set out its strategy for 2023-2026, which aims to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the insurance and pensions sectors

US insurers’ common stock exposure increased to about $1.2trn at year-end 2021, representing a 21% increase from year-end 2020, figures published by the NAIC have shown

PIC has agreed to invest £105m to forward fund a new 130,000sq ft net-zero in operation office to be let to the Government Property Agency (GPA) for 25 years

LV= has appointed Adam Ruddle into the role of chief investment officer

UK insurers’ strong liquidity and robust capital positions, supported by the Bank of England’s intervention in the gilts market, will allow them to navigate the current volatility and illiquidity in swap and bond markets, Moody’s has stated

Canopius Group has appointed Adhiraj Maitra as group head of sustainability

Private equity insurers now have a 10% share of the US life/annuity’s total assets, more than double the share from five years ago, AM Best has said

Eighty per cent of institutional investors expect strong growth in non-UK fund managers seeking to list overseas on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) over the next 18 months, according to new research from Ocorian

Neuberger Berman has announced the hire of Eric Karlson, who joins the firm as managing director and portfolio manager in the private placement debt team focusing on asset-backed securities (ABS) and structured transactions

Sixty per cent of global insurers are now reporting inflation as their top market concern, with 79% planning to review their long-term SAA and almost half (48%) reviewing risk appetite thresholds this year, latest research published by BlackRock has revealed

AllianceBernstein (AB) has made five hires to its global insurance team as part of a significant growth plan for the asset manager’s insurance capabilities and client base across the US and EMEA

Just Group has become a signatory to the Asset Owner Diversity Charter (AODC) joining 21 other signatories with combined AuM of over £1trn

French bank insurer, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, has initiated a review in order to create an asset management division

The South Korean reinsurance industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% from KRW9.6trn ($8.4bn) in 2021 to KRW 13.4trn ($11.9bn) in 2026, in terms of gross written premiums (GWP), supported by climate change and positive regulatory developments, GlobalData has predicted

Factor investors, including institutional investors, expect factor-based strategies to outperform in an inflationary environment with slow economic growth, and also believe the current market environment makes factor investing in fixed income more attractive as a better way to manage volatility and diversify portfolios

The Japanese life insurance industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6% from JPY29,427.8bn ($274.9bn) in 2021 to JPY33,545.4bn ($313.3bn) in 2026, in terms of direct written premiums, GlobalData has said

LV= has appointed David Hynam as its chief executive, subject to regulatory approval, and will join LV= on 26 September 2022

Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) has appointed Mauro Gerli as head of institutional, Switzerland, and will open a representative office in Zurich on the 1 October 2022

HSBC Asset Management has announced its policy to phase out coal-fired power and thermal coal mining from its listed holdings

The UK’s Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed that later this autumn the government is to bring forward an "ambitious deregulatory package" to "unleash the potential of the country’s financial services sector", including scrapping EU rules from Solvency II to free up billions of pounds for investment

The management board chairman of R+V Versicherung AG, Norbert Rollinger, is the new CEO of the German Insurance Association (GDV)

Asia-Pacific (APAC) life insurers will remain disciplined in asset and liability management as interest rates rise, Moody’s has said

The Bank of England has raised UK interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 2.25% in an attempt to combat soaring inflation amid the cost of living crisis

Valuation uncertainty is expected to be even greater for securitised private assets than sub-prime m mortgages, the BoE’s executive director for insurance Charlotte Gerken has said

Varma has signed the 2022 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis petition

UK life insurers’ fundamentals were strong in H1 2022, despite high inflation and capital market volatility, Fitch Ratings has said in a new report

Total cash and invested assets for private equity (PE) insurers decreased by around 3% to $472bn in book/adjusted carrying value (BACV) as of year-end 2021, according to latest figures published by the NAIC

Nippon Life has made a syndicated loan agreement valued at ¥950m with Sumitomo Chemical Company

Federated Hermes has appointed Michaelis Ditsas as investment director – fixed income

Franklin Templeton has appointed Heneg Parthenay as head of insurance EMEA

US insurers’ CLO exposure increased by 12% to $216.3bn as of year-end 2021, from $192.9bn at year-end 2020, latest figures published by AM Best have shown

Delaware Life has arranged a $400m credit facility with Fundamental Renewables, the clean energy investment arm of Fundamental Advisors (Fundamental)

Post Advisory Group, the $15.6bn AuM global high yield, senior loan and structured credit specialist investment team of Principal Global Investors, has appointed Kevin Farley as a portfolio manager for its CLO and structured credit platform

Prudential has been selected alongside MetLife to participate in a $16bn pension risk transfer (PRT) transaction with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the second-largest PRT ever in the US market

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) has called for input on the development of its Climate Resilience Investment Framework

The UK pension risk transfer (PRT) market completed £12bn worth of buy-ins and buyouts over the first half of 2022, up from £7.8bn in H1 2021, analysis from LCP has revealed

The European Commission (EC) has adopted a formal opinion requiring the Slovak insurance supervisory authority (Národná banka Slovenska, NBS) to fully comply with Solvency II

The average comprehensive solvency ratio of Chinese insurance companies at the end of Q2 2022 was 220.8%, and the average core solvency ratio was 148.1%, figures published by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) have revealed

Insurance Europe is calling on the EU to prioritise setting climate standards over social ones, in putting forward its ESG taxonomy

Almost nine in ten (88%) institutional investors have increased their allocation to assets and investment products that aim to provide a hedge against inflation in the past six months, research from Tabula Investment Management has revealed

Gothaer has signed the global investor declaration to governments on the 2022 climate crisis

MetLife Investment Management (MIM) has named René Zeidan a director in its institutional client group, where he will be responsible for institutional client strategy and the delivery of investment solutions to clients in Europe

US insurers continue to have minimal investment exposure to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond markets, despite it seen significant growth in recent years, AM Best has revealed

Financial institutions and supervisors are again being warned by the three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) to be prepared for a deterioration in asset quality in the financial sector

Net income for the US life/annuity (L/A) insurance industry increased by 62% in H1 2022, rising to $20.9bn from $12.9bn in the same prior-year period, according to AM Best’s latest financial review analysing the market

Swiss Re’s Group CIO and country president Switzerland, Guido Fürer, has decided to retire effective 31 March 2023, after 25 years with the company and having served as group CIO for a full decade

PIC’s investment portfolio fell by £7bn in H1 2022, from £51.1bn to £44.1bn

MetLife has appointed Ben Cushman as head of global regulatory policy

European life consolidation activity picked up following a slow start to 2022 with four acquisitions announced within less than two months, Fitch Ratings has said, bringing the year-to-date deal volume by liabilities to around €60bn

Groupama has strengthened its commitment to the climate by joining the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA)

Just Group has completed a £484m full scheme buy-in with the Barloworld UK Pension Scheme, insuring the beneits of around 3,000 pensioners and 1,800 deferred members.

State Farm is to make a $1.2bn equity investment in smart home and small business security brand, ADT, and therefore will acquire around 15% of the company

BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has announced the appointment of Mark Richards as head of flexible & absolute return within its multi-asset, quantitative & solutions (MAQS) investment division

Global specialty (re)insurance group Chaucer, in collaboration with Moody’s, has rolled out a ESG Balanced Scorecard across investments, underwriting, and operations

US insurers will continue to increase their fixed income ETF holdings, according to Fitch Ratings

Eastspring Investments has appointed Bill Maldonado as chief investment officer

The quality benchmark indicator for annual solo Solvency II reporting among European insurance and reinsurance companies rose from 82% in 2016 to 94% in 2020, according to EIOPA

The Malaysian insurance industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4% from MYR 73.1bn ($17.6bn) in 2021 to MYR 109.6bn ($26.7bn) in 2026, in terms of written premium, led by the life insurance and pension segment, GlobalData has estimated

Legal & General (L&G) has agreed a £21m full scheme buy-in with the Kesslers Group Pension Plan

The UK life insurance regime is about to undergo “potentially significant change” that could have a “far-reaching” impact on defined benefit (DB) pension scheme endgame strategies and members, according to Cardano

Direct Line has appointed former Lloyd’s of London head of treasury and investment management, Nicola Hartley, as director of investment and capital management

Aviva Investors has bolstered its liquidity team, with the appointment of Alastair Sewell as liquidity investment strategist

Zurich intends to exercise its option to redeem £450m of subordinated debt

Several European insurance sector outlooks could move to ‘deteriorating’ if high inflation persists and interest rate rises become more significant, Fitch Ratings has said

US insurer Chubb has hired the former Singapore chief executive of Sun Life, Belinda Au, as the president of its life insurance unit in Hong Kong

Gothaer Asset Management has appointed Janine Spieker as its new head of real estate

Total assets of Chinese insurance companies amounted to RMB 26.6trn at the end of Q2 2022, an increase of RMB 1.8trn and up by 7% from the beginning of the year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has revealed

Prudential has appointed Don Guo as group chief investment officer

Forty-three per cent of global institutional investors expect fixed income performance to deteriorate further over the next 12 months, with 13% expecting a significant decline, a new report published by Aeon Investments has revealed

Insurers in Europe are exploring fixed income asset classes in which they generally have little experience, thereby creating outsourcing opportunities for external asset managers, according to latest research published by Cerulli

The global specialty insurance market is expected to hit $243.7bn by 2028, a new report has suggested

Vaudoise Insurance Group has announced that it achieved a consolidated profit of CHF 66.8m in H1

Sompo International has announced the sale of its Endurance at Lloyd’s (EAL) run-off business to RiverStone Holdings Limited

Axa has completed the sale of is Malaysian operations to Generali, in line with plans to strengthen its position in the “high potential” Asian economy

The US life/health insurance industry saw a higher number of credit rating upgrades in H1 2022 compared with the same prior-year period, with improved capitalisation levels a driving force, AM Best has said

Institutional investors are increasingly focusing on Vietnam, specifically its technology and financial services sectors, according to latest research

Swiss Life has successfully placed a €700m senior bond with investors in the European market, with maturity in 2029 and a 3.25% coupon

MetLife Investment Management (MIM) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Affirmative Investment Management (AIM), a specialist global environmental, social and corporate (ESG) impact fixed income investment manager

Finnish pension insurance company, Elo, made a return of -4.5% in the first half of 2022

The market segment outlook for Taiwan’s non-life industry has been revised to negative from stable by AM Best, as a resurgence of COVID-19 has led to significant losses on pandemic-related insurance policies

Germany’s third largest insurer, Talanx, is the latest (re)insurance company to confirm to the #StopEACOP Coalition that it will not (re)insure the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)

The volume of the UK PRT market is expected to reach around £12bn in H1 2022, representing a 50% increase compared to the same period in 2021, according to L&G's Global PRT Monitor

Japanese insurer, Dai-ichi Life, has invested JPY 500m in JEPLAN, a company that uses proprietary recycling technologies to promote the circulation of PET bottles and other resources

Japan’s general insurance market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3% from JPY11,155.4bn ($101.6bn) in 2021 to JPY12,920.7bn ($133.1bn) in 2026, in terms of gross written premiums (GWP), driven by a rise in commercial insurance lines, GlobalData has said

Global investment firm, KKR, has led a significant structured investment in Arevia Power (Arevia), a US renewable energy developer, through its managed insurance accounts

Dedicated reinsurance capacity in 2021 increased to $568bn, driven by an increase of nearly 11% from traditional reinsurance capacity providers, according to AM Best

The implementation of the Korean Insurance Capital Standard (K-ICS) starting 2023, together with IFRS 17, will squeeze insurers’ capital buffers, Fitch Ratings has said

Barings has appointed Ken Griffin as the firm’s head of insurance solutions, effective immediately

Some 95% of institutional investors in Europe and the US agree with the view that the bespoke nature of alternative credit presents a viable option for investors to make a positive social and environmental impact by educating smaller companies in the financing market, according to latest research published by Aeon Investments

Varma’s returns on unlisted investments in H1 2022, such as private equity investments, hedge funds and real estate and infrastructure investments, compensated for the weak performance of the listed equity and fixed income markets in the same period, according to its latest financial statement

General insurance premiums in Europe are expected to grow at a lower rate of 4.9% in 2022 compared to 7.8% in 2021, according to latest figures from GlobalData, as rising inflation will impact the ability of policyholders to pay higher premiums

Pan-American Life Insurance Group (PALIG) has appointed Lisa Baudot as chief investment officer

Ceres, the not-for-profit environmental organisation, together with 64 institutional investors with nearly $10trn AuM, is asking companies to engage in sustainable water leadership

UNIQA’s net investment income fell by 31.2% to €211.2m in H1 2022 due to a €127m impairment of Russian bonds as well as additional impairments on the investment in RBI amounting to €28m

The US insurance industry’s exposure to derivatives in notional value reached $3trn at year-end 2021, representing an increase of 6.2% compared to year-end 2020 and 29.2% compared to year-end 2017, latest figures published by the NAIC have shown

French life insurance premiums amounted to €11.9bn in June 2022, down by -€ 1.4bn compared to June 2021, latest figures published by France Assureurs have shown

The volume of M&A in the global insurance industry has reached its highest rate of growth for ten years, up 9.5% to 242 compared to 221 deals in H2 2021, Clyde & Co’s Insurance Growth Report 2022 has revealed

Total reinsurance gross premiums written by the top 50 global reinsurers increased in 2021 by 9.8% to US$353bn from US$321bn in the previous year, according to AM Best, with Munich Re retaining top spot for a second-straight year

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a statement encouraging issuers and holders of outstanding Libor-linked bonds to transition to fair alternative rates

Insurance and Pension Denmark (I&P Denmark) has welcomed a new law that has been submitted for consultation specifically aimed at insurance and pension companies