The life insurance direct written premium in Taiwan is projected to grow from TW$3trn in 2019 to TW$3.6trn in 2024, according to GlobalData

Varma Pension Insurance Company (Varma) has invested US$240m (€196m) in Nordea’s sustainable investment fund that invests in the emerging markets

Bermuda’s (re)insurance companies raised around $7.7bn of capital in 2020/2021, including common and preferred equity, various debt securities and drawdown on credit facilities

Life insurer AIA Australia has signalled its intent to take on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) life insurance and investments business (CommInsure Life)

Schroders has hired Natalie Howard to lead its new real estate debt platform

Storebrand has hired Kamil Zabielski as head of sustainable investments

Chubb has announced its executive vice president and chief financial officer Philip Bancroft plans to retire from the company on 1 July after 19 years of service

The risk of asset bubbles, price instability, commodity shocks and debt crises feature prominently in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest Global Risks Report

The world’s leading insurers and the UN Environment Programme have unveiled ‘state-of-the-art’ approaches to assessing climate-related physical, transition and litigation risks

Intact Financial Corporation has received unconditional approval for its takeover of RSA by Canadian regulators

Insurance Europe has welcomed the European Commission’s European Single Access Point (ESAP) initiative for financial and non-financial information disclosed by companies

The world's 30 largest asset management groups were found to be - through their equity holdings - between 8% and 27% deviated from a Paris-aligned target, with variations arising due to geographic differences in markets they operate in

Canopius Group is planning a flotation on the London Stock Exchange that could value it at more than £2bn

Cattolica Assicurazioni’s board of directors has started to work on a remedy plan following the Institute for the Supervision of Insurance’s (IVASS) inspection into governance structures and risk management systems

AXIS Capital will not provide insurance coverage or investment support to projects related to exploration, drilling, or the production of oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Just Group has reduced its exposure to the UK property market by selling £540m of lifetime mortgages balances in December and completed a third hedge to cover £280m of lifetime mortgages

Allianz has announced for the first time concrete interim targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its investment portfolio of policyholder funds, implementing its stated goal of climate neutrality by 2050

The Mexico government’s recent 50-year bond issuance may offer an attractive, long-term interest rate alternative intended to maintain investor confidence and reinforce the country’s capital inflows and liquidity, according to a new AM Best commentary

For the first three quarters of 2020, US insurers net acquired about $180bn in bonds in terms of total price paid, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

For the first three quarters of 2019, however, they net disposed about $33bn in
bonds in terms of total price received

Supervisors should support insurers in helping to facilitate the transition to sustainability, Insurance Europe has argued

Achmea has sharpened its investment policy by further reducing investments in polluting and CO2-intensive companies

Thirty-three of the world’s largest investors, representing $5.1trn of assets under management, have committed to setting and reporting on 2025 targets to support the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) has announced its biennial election of officers for 2021-2022

Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva, has published its net zero pathway for its Real Assets business as part of the Better Buildings Partnership Climate Change Commitment

Zurich has announced the successful placement of US$1.75bn of dated subordinated notes

Schroders has appointed Chantale Pelletier as global head of infrastructure in private assets to lead the growth and development of the firm’s infrastructure investment platform

Vontobel has strengthened its emerging markets (EM) fixed income team with four new appointments across its Zurich and Hong Kong offices, including a strategist/portfolio manager and three new analysts

The overall P&C segment in the US has “sufficient capital” entering 2021 to weather “moderate investment losses” and a “continuation of elevated catastrophe losses”, the Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) has said

American Equity Investment Life Holding Company (American Equity) has announced that Tolga Uzuner will become chief investment officer (CIO), asset management

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has named its 2021 committee chairs and vice chairs

European insurers are calling for regulatory clarity on outsourcing and third-party relationships

Storebrand has launched a new real estate fund focusing on robust cash flows and sustainable assets

Achmea is expanding its presence in Slovakia by the acquisition of insurance company Poštová poisťovňa

Nippon Life, together with National Australia Bank (NAB), has resolved to inject capital into MLC Life through a third-party allotment

European life insurers’ solvency ratios are expected to fall by around five percentage points (ppts) and by close to 10 ppts in an adverse scenario similar to the credit crisis of 2000-2001, thus leading to an increase in capital requirements, Moody’s has said.

In an extreme scenario where all bonds are downgraded by three notches, solvency ratios could fall by more than 30 ppts, Moody’s added

A call for expression of interest by the European Commission for the appointment of members of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) Board of Appeal for the financial services sector has been launched.

Four major Japanese life insurers do not invest in or extend loans to producers of nuclear weapons or companies related to them as part of their efforts toward socially responsible investing

Assets managed by insurers and pensions funds in the Netherlands increased to €2,112bn at the end of the third quarter of 2020, higher than before the coronavirus crisis

The global ETF market finished 2020 at a record high of $7.6trn across 6,518 ETFs, latest data has revealed

Memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between EIOPA and all NCAs of the EEA with competencies in insurance, and the BoE in its capacity as the PRA and the FCA of the UK, have now taken effect

Sun Life has completed its 51% majority stake acquisition of Crescent Capital Group (Crescent), a global alternative credit investment manager

AIG Life has appointed Neil Davis as commercial director following partnership director Nicola Dryden’s decision to leave

The scenes of mob violence seen in Washington have been comdemned by US insurers

The PRA has today published a consultation paper (CP) setting out its approach to deep, liquid and transparent (DLT) assessments and the transition of Solvency II technical information (TI) from LIBOR to SONIA in 2021

UnitedHealth Group has been ranked the world’s number one largest insurance company for a sixth straight year, with $189.7bn in net premiums written (NPW)

Climate change scenario analysis should only be included in an insurer’s own risk & solvency assessment (ORSA) if it actually faces material climate risks, European insurers have said

Mercer has announced the launch of climate transition analytics and advice for institutional investors who want to transition to a 1.5°C scenario of global warming as outlined in the Paris Agreement

Chief executive officers from AIG, Guardian Life and MetLife are all urging U.S. Congress to certify the electoral results for President-elect Joe Biden

The sector outlooks for most life insurance markets are worsening, reflecting the higher risk of fallout from the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, as the effects of defaults, write-downs and even lower interest rates take greater hold, Fitch Ratings has said

Net inflows in the French life insurance space were recorded at -€30m for November 2020, compared to -€154m for October

W. R. Berkley expects to report a realised pre-tax net gain of around $105m from the sale of one of its real estate investments, keeping with the company’s long-term strategy of investing for total return in order to continue delivering superior long-term value creation to shareholders despite a low interest rate environment

Catastrophe bond issuance in 2020 reached a record high, as the market saw over $11bn of pure property cat bonds issued for the first time

Aviva has appointed Mark Versey as chief executive of Aviva Investors

As 2020 draws to a close, Insurance Asset Management takes a look back at some of the biggest and most-read stories from the year

Singapore’s general insurance market is forecast to contract by 1.9% in 2020, compared to the 6.7% growth registered in 2019, according to GlobalData

Investment risk remains a key credit risk for US life insurers owing to their high exposure to fixed income securities, in particular corporate bonds, Moody’s Investors Service has said

UK life insurers could allocate up to £170bn to illiquid investments over the next decade, Fitch Ratings has said

The General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV) is pressing for the principle of proportionality to be taken even more into account when reforming Solvency II (SII)

The life insurance written premium in the Asia-Pacific region is projected to grow from US$1.2trn in 2019 to US$1.5trn in 2023

Groupama has announced the signing of an agreement by its Hungarian subsidiary Groupama Biztosito, to acquire the Croatian insurance company, OTP Osiguranje, owned by OTP Bank

The global green bond market will grow by €300bn in 2021, reaching €1trn, according to forecasts by NN Investment Partners (NN IP)

Farmers Group has announced the promotion of Maïté Irakoze Baur to the role of chief investment officer effective 1 January 2021

The European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) has extended its recommendation on restricting dividends paid by financial institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic until 30 September 2021

Pension scheme buy-ins and buyouts could reach £30bn in 2021, with a further £25bn of longevity swaps alongside this, according to forecasts from Willis Towers Watson (WTW)

EIOPA’s proposals on Solvency II (SII) reform and current market conditions is expected to hit Dutch insurer, NN Group’s, SII ratio

Liquidity risk for the European insurance sector is not expected to significantly increase in the next 12 months, EIOPA has said

NN Investment Partners (NN IP) has appointed Adrie Heinsbroek as chief sustainability officer (CSO), as of 1 January 2021

The European Supervisory Authorities have issued a comment letter to the International Finance Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, which, among other aspects, calls for a common set of sustainability standards

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) submitted today to the European Commission its Opinion on the Solvency II 2020 Review

Lloyd’s of London has released its Environmental, Social and Governance Report which, among other commitments, asks Lloyd’s managing agents to no longer provide new insurance cover for coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, oil sands and new arctic energy exploration

Fidelis is to rule out underwriting the Adani Carmichael coal project in Australia, making it the 28th re/insurer to publicly make this commitment

The merger deal between Aon and Willis Towers Watson (WTW) is set to undergo an in-depth probe by European Union (EU) regulators due to its complexity, sources have told Reuters

A consortium of Swiss institutional investors has committed to a fund offered by AIP Infrastructure, which is partly owned by Danish pension funds PKA and PenSam

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has elected its officers for 2021

Life insurer LV= is to sell itself to private equity group Bain Capital in a £530m deal

The PRA has today set out its 2021 supervisory priorities for the UK insurance sector

European insurers could be seeing losses of more than 25% on average in their equity investment portfolios within the high-carbon sector, EIOPA has said

Aviva has appointed Doug Brown as CEO of UK & Ireland Life Insurance

State Street and UBS Group are in talks about merging their asset management businesses

Liberty Mutual Insurance has become a signatory of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

UNIQA is to increase its green investments to at least € 1bn over the next five years

Asset managers representing over $9trn of assets under management (AuM) have
announced the launch of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative

Aviva has agreed to sell the entire shareholding in its wholly-owned life insurance business in Vietnam, Aviva Vietnam, to Manulife

Aegon is to make internal model adjustments to reduce the volatility of its NL Life capital ratio

Zurich Insurance Group subsidiary, Farmers Group, Inc. (FGI), has agreed to acquire MetLife’s property and casualty (P&C) business in the US together with the Farmers Exchanges for US$3.94bn

Standard Insurance, the insurance arm of Johannesburg-based Standard Bank Group and one of South Africa’s leading insurance providers, has selected the Moody’s Analytics RiskIntegrity™ for IFRS 17 solution to support its adoption of the new IFRS 17 accounting standard

Alternative investment managers (Alt-IMs) are expected to remain active in the US life insurance sector through direct investment in life insurance companies, Fitch has said

More than two-thirds of European institutional investors (67%) were able to meet or exceed their investment performance targets over the last 12 months, new figures reveal

The outlook for the European insurance sector is negative, Moody’s Investors Service has said in a report published today

New accounting standards on expected credit losses do not have a material effect on US insurers and will not require any changes to the credit metrics used to rate those insurers, according to Fitch Ratings

Members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) have adopted the NAIC’s Group Capital Calculation (GCC) along with model legislative language designed to enable the GCC once adopted by the state legislatures

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) proposal for a differentiated and more appropriate capital treatment of infrastructure and strategic equity investments has been welcomed by Insurance Europe, but the latter has argued further improvements should be made to better reflect risk posed to insurers

Groupama has committed to a global coal exit in its investment portfolios by 2040

Britain will never again have the same access to the European Union as it did when the country was a member of the bloc, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union Mairead McGuinness has said

Capital adequacy is anticipated to remain steady by all measures through 2021 in the US P&C insurance sector, with the capital surplus expected to expand by approximately 4% in 2021, according to Fitch Ratings

US insurance M&A activity is expected to “increase significantly” in 2021, according to Clyde & Co

A group of 123 scientists, led by Andreas Hoepner and Joeri Rogelj have written an open letter to the EU President following a first draft criteria for the EU sustainable finance taxonomy, attempting to classifying investments that can be marketed as sustainable

Phoenix Group has set a net-zero carbon by 2050 investment target for its investment portfolio, consistent with the objective of limiting the temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures and is in line with the Paris Agreement and the commitment of the UK government

Enstar Group has announced that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries has signed an agreement with Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe (LMIE) to reinsure a number of US energy liability, US construction liability and US homebuilders liability insurance portfolios that were previously written out of LMIE’s London branch

US ratings agency AM Best has maintained its market segment outlook on the global reinsurance industry at stable for 2021, citing factors that include positive pricing momentum, combined with tighter terms and conditions, offset somewhat by uncertainty with regard to claims reserve development associated with previous years’ property catastrophe events; social inflation; and more recently, business interruption and casualty lines, related to COVID-19

The Spanish life and savings insurance market shrank by 26% in the 9M20, reflecting lower sales during lockdown

American Equity Investment Life Holding Company has closed an initial equity investment of 9,106,042 shares at $37.00 per share from Brookfield Asset Management as part of a previously announced strategic partnership

MAPFRE AM the asset management arm of Spain's largest insurance company has received the SRI label, a tool created by the French Finance Ministry to help to increase the visibility of SRI products among savers in France and Europe

Phoenix Group has become a signatory of the UN-supported Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI)

Belgium’s life and savings insurance market shrank by 10% in H1 2020, reflecting lower sales during the first period of lockdown, but non-life premiums were more resilient, growing by 0.9% in H1 2020

Twenty-seven per cent of ratings in the US life insurance sector have a negative outlook, Fitch Ratings have said

The average Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) ratio of (re)insurance undertakings across Europe using voluntary long-term guarantees measures (LTG) and measures on equity risk is 247% and would drop to 204% if the measures were not applied, EIOPA has revealed

An adoption of the International Capital Standard (ICS) Margin Over Current Estimate (MOCE), the international version of the risk margin, in the UK would cut the risk margin by at least a half, ABI assistant director, head of prudential regulation, Steven Findlay said

The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court ruling to block the transfer of a £12bn portfolio of annuities from Prudential Assurance Company to Rothesay Life, stating that the original judge was "wrong" on a number of issues

French life insurance net inflows for October 2020 were recorded at -€154m

Monument Re announced today that Monument Life Insurance d.a.c has completed the acquisition of a portfolio of unit-linked international portfolio bond policies from Zurich Life Assurance

EIOPA must not undermine the ability of insurers to use reinsurance to manage risk, Insurance Europe has argued

Unfriend Coal’s Insure Our Future campaign has revealed its fourth annual scorecard on insurers’ climate policies, and despite progress some major companies in the US, the Lloyd’s Market and East Asia are still insuring coal. Moreover there are few signs that the global insurance industry is taking comprehensive action on oil and gas

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published a discussion paper on a methodology for the potential inclusion of climate change in the Solvency II standard formula when calculating natural catastrophe underwriting risk

German life insurers will have built up an additional interest reserve (ZZR) of around €87bn by the end of 2020, €11bn more than in 2019, according to calculations by the German Insurance Association (GDV)

Australia's general insurance industry net profit after tax of $0.9 billion and return on net assets of 3.2 per cent were significantly lower during the year ended September 2020, according to latest figures published by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)

Net income in the US life/annuity (L/A) industry dropped by nearly 57% to $12.7bn in the first nine months of 2020, compared with the same prior-year period

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has started a consultation on the relevant ratios to be mandatorily disclosed by insurers and reinsurers falling within the scope of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive as well as on the methodologies to build those ratios

The 2021 outlook for the global asset management sector is negative, reflecting the uneven global economic recovery which remains vulnerable to increasing coronavirus cases, volatility in the financial markets, and wavering investor risk appetite, Moody’s Investors Service has said

The outlook for Italian insurance in 2021 is worsening for the life sector and stable for the non-life sector, Fitch Ratings has said

Eight US insurance companies filed TaskForce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, or TCFD, reports in response to the Climate Risk Disclosure Survey in 2020, Insurance Commissioners Mike Kreidler of Washington state and Ricardo Lara of California have announced

The Reserve Bank of New Zeland is today launching dual consultations on the scope of the Insurance Prudential Supervision Act (IPSA) 2010 and associated Insurer Solvency Standards

The UK government has extended the period of consultation into the Solvency II (SII) review by one month to 19 February 2021

The outlook for insurers in emerging markets is more stable than that of banks (negative), as the lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in one-off gains in profitability, but pressures on capital are increasing, Moody’s has said

AXA has entered into an agreement with Gulf Insurance Group (GIG) to sell its insurance operations in the Gulf region for US$269m or €225 million , which includes its shareholding in AXA Gulf, AXA Cooperative Insurance Company and AXA Green Crescent Insurance Company

Aviva Life & Pensions UK has completed an £875m buy-in with its parent company’s defined benefit pension scheme, covering around 2,800 members’ pension liabilities

MAPFRE has appointed Mónica Zuleta Díaz as its new head of sustainability

Aegon has agreed to sell its insurance, pension and asset management business in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Turkey for €830m to Vienna Insurance Group AG Wiener Versicherung Gruppe (VIG)

Institutional investors including insurers should consider great allocations to China to benefit from the long-term opportunities the country presents and help to manage their overall risk, two research papers have suggested.

The winners of the Insurance Asset Management Awards 2020 were announced last night via a special video broadcast

Few US insurers have reported altering their investment strategy in response to considerations of the impact of climate change on investment portfolios, findings published by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) have revealed

Ageas has successfully placed debt securities in the form of €500m subordinated fixed to floating rate notes maturing in November 2051 and with a first call date in 2031

Qatar Insurance Group has recently announced the appointment of Hasan Al-Lawati as the new CEO for its subsidiary Oman Qatar Insurance Company (OQIC)

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has invested £65m in debt issued by Pobl, a housing association based in Newport, Wales

Skandia has invested SEK 1bn in train infrastructure via a bond issued by the Eurofima partner body

Aviva has reported a 13.8% decline in the value of new business (VNB) written by its life insurance business, which stood at £714m in the first nine months of the year

Fitch Ratings is maintaining German non-life insurance in 2021 on a stable sector outlook

The board of supervisors of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has re-elected Peter Braumüller, managing director of insurance and pension supervision at the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) as vice-chairperson of EIOPA

Sixty-six per cent of institutional investors in Germany and the US expect institutional investors to increase their exposure to Germany over the next 12 months, according to latest research

Bank of England (BoE) regulators are looking to rejig Solvency II (SII) regulations in Britian as quickly as possible after the Brexit transition period ends, BoE executive director of prudential policy Victoria Saporta has said

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published a consultation on the statement on supervisory practices and expectations in case of breach of the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR)

Net sales of UCITS and AIFs totalled €32bn in September, up from €30bn in August, according to the latest data from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA)

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) intends to continue to emphasise robust capital and liquidity buffers in its supervision of insurers and financial institutions

The UK life insurance sector outlook for 2021 is worsening, driven by lower interest rates in 2020 and substantial downside risks to interest rates and credit markets in 2021, Fitch Ratings has said

Asia-Pacific’s private market AuM will grow from $1.62trn in 2019 to $4.97trn in 2025, at
a world-beating CAGR of 25.2%, according to research published by Preqin

Fitch Ratings' sector outlook for the French insurance sector in 2021 is worsening for the life segment and is stable for non-life

Aviva has agreed to sell its entire 80% shareholding in the Italian life insurance joint venture, Aviva Vita S.p.A. (Aviva Vita), to its partner UBI Banca

BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has announced the further strengthening of its private debt & real assets (PDRA) investment division

Zurich is in discussions to acquire MetLife’s US P&C business for close to $4bn

Following gradual annual increases over the last decade, US insurers’ exposure to NAIC-2 designated bonds as a percentage of total bonds was unchanged at 30% at year-end 2019 compared to year-end 2018, latest figures published by the NAIC have shown

Total assets of Chinese insurance companies amounted to RMB 22.4trn at the end of Q3 2020, increasing by RMB 1.9trn and up by 9.1% from the beginning of the year

QBE Insurance Group (QBE) has become the first Australian insurer to become a member of the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, committing to a net-zero emissions investment portfolio by 2050

J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) has appointed Paolo Gazzola as an executive director

Forty-five per cent of total assets under management (AuM) in Europe at the end of 2019 were invested in some sort of ESG selection strategy, a new report by the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has shown

The financial industry must do more to help in the fight against climate change, Professor Martin Siegert, Professor of Geosciences and co-director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, has warned

Sustainable investing assets now account for $17.1trn - or 1 in 3 dollars - of the total US assets under professional management, representing a 42% increase over 2018, The US SIF Foundation's 2020 biennial report on US Sustainable and Impact Investing Trends has found

Four Japanese insurers have revealed plans to strengthen their environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments in the second half of fiscal 2020, amid mounting public pressure for insurers to practice sustainable investment practices

British insurer RSA has agreed a £7.2bn takeover from Intact Financial Corporation and the Scandinavian insurer Tryg

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has appointed Wellington Management (Wellington) to manage its US municipal bonds (muni bonds) portfolio

MAPFRE has continued the diversification of its investment portfolio with the acquisition of an office building in the London neighborhood of Fitzrovia thorugh the SIEREF-GLL fund, which the insurer launches with its managing partner GLL Real Estate Partners (Macquarie Group)

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is calling on insurers to respond to a new accounting standard for insurance contracts

German institutional investors have reduced their home bias over the past three decades but this has shifted to eurozone ‘near bias’ instead, according to a report by Union Investment

Zurich Insurance Group has become the first large institutional investor to prioritise the environmental and social goals of its impact investment portfolio following its AUM reaching $5bn

Premium income in the life and non-life Italian business in the first six months of 2020 amounted to €68bn, down by 9.2% compared to the first half of 2019, according to latest figures published by Italy's Institute for the Supervision of Insurance (IVASS)

Failure to act on stakeholder pressure around ESG issues could lead to long-term reputational challenges for their organisation, insurance companies in Europe and Asia Pacific have said

Eighty per cent of European professional investors now have social real estate firmly on their radar as an investment opportunity and over the next two years around 30% expect institutional investors to increase their real estate allocation to funds offering a social benefit

Swiss insurance company Helvetia has issued its first green hybrid bond worth CHF 200m, enabling its investors to participate in and support its sustainability targets

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) is conducting a public consultation around bank and insurer disclosures concerning climate change and financial risks

Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) has launched a range of sustainable index funds within a tax efficient Authorised Contractual Scheme (ACS) structure aimed at pension funds and other institutional investors

Conning has announced the launch of a new Climate Risk Reporting and Scenario Service, equipping institutional investors with the tools and analytics needed to assess portfolio risk under a range of climate change stresses

Zurich has seen its property & casualty (P&C) gross written premiums rise by 3% on a like-for-like basis for the nine months ended 30 September 2020 compared to a year earlier

Turkish insurers' insurer financial strength ratings are under pressure from the negative outlooks on the Turkish sovereign and Turkish banks' ratings, Fitch Ratings has said

Two of Denmark’s largest pension funds, PKA and PenSam, have joined forces with Norway’s Storebrand to establish a new climate and infrastructure fund of up to DKK 30bn, under the auspices of AIP Management

The Prudential Staff Pension Scheme has secured a longevity swap deal with Pacific Life Re, covering £3.7bn of pension liabilities, the fifth largest UK longevity swap on record

Japanese property and casualty (P&C) insurers' adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives is a long-term positive, but faces near-term hurdles in the form of legacy practices that undermine their flexibility in managing evolving trends, Moody's has said

Luxembourg’s insurance sector saw premiums fall by 22.52% in Q3 2020, compared to the same period in 2019, as a result of COVID-19

Alternative assets will hit more than $17trn in AuM by 2025, up from $10.74trn at the end of 2020, latest data has shown

HM Treasury has said EEA states are equivalent for the purposes of Solvency II (SII) articles 378, 379 and 380

Local companies in the Philippine insurance industry will still face significant pressure on profitability amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with the recent rejection of a proposal to relax minimum capital requirements, AM Best has said

AIG’s total consolidated net investment income increased to $3.8bn in Q3 2020, compared to $3.4bn in the prior year quarter, and net investment income on an APTI basis increased $271m primarily reflecting higher private equity and hedge fund returns

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has appointed Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) CEO Tracy Blackwell, Rothesay CEO Addy Loudiadis and Phoenix Group CEO savings and retirement UK & Europe and group director Scotland Andy Curran to its board

Scottish Widows is to divest at least £440m from companies that have failed to meet its environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, and warned this figure could grow much further if companies do not take action to improve the sustainability of their business practices

Australian life and non-life insurers' earnings are likely to fall due to top-line pressure and weaker investment revenue, Fitch Ratings has said in a new report

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has issued an Accounting Standards Update (ASU) that will help insurance companies adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic by giving them an additional year to implement Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-12, Financial Services—Insurance (Topic 944): Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts (LDTI)

The risk exposures of the European Union (EU) insurance sector have slightly reduced since EIOPA published its July risk assessment update

Members of the 30-strong UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance have published their position on thermal coal, calling for the cancellation of all new thermal coal projects, a phase-out of all unabated existing coal-fired electricity generation and a cessation of the financing, development and planning of further thermal coal power plants

RSA Insurance Group has received a £7.1bn takeover bid from Canada’s Intact Financial and Danish insurer Tryg, in what could be the biggest acquisition of a UK-listed company this year

BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has appointed Séverine Piquet as head of corporate credit research

MetLife’s net investment income was $4.7bn for Q3 2020, up 2% from the third quarter of 2019 driven by higher private equity returns

As of year-end 2019, US insurers’ investment in emerging markets bonds and stocks totalled $48.4bn in book/adjusted carrying value (BACV), which was less than 1% of total cash and invested assets; bonds accounted for the majority, at $46.9bn, according to a report published by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)

The approach of EIOPA and the ESRB to the Solvency II review undermines insurers in facilitating the EC’s Capital Markets Union and Green Deal objectives, Insurance Europe has said

Less than 1% of total assets of the French insurance sector are exposed to the coal industry, a new report has revealed

Global alternative investment manager Ares has made Raj Krishnan partner and chief investment officer of Ares Insurance Solutions (AIS)

The outlook for German life insurers for 2021 is negative, reflecting the pressure low-interest rates exert on earnings and solvency, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report published today

Forty-nine per cent of global insurers are expecting to increase their allocation to real assets investment strategies over the next 12 months, a new study has revealed

The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) superintendent Linda Lacewell has announced a settlement worth $6m with Principal Life Insurance Company for annuity replacement violations

MAPFRE’s total assets have fallen 5% from the close of 2019 and now stand at €68.8bn due to stock market falls, currency depreciation and reduced activity

French life insurers recorded net inflows for September of –€0.8bn

Allianz and Telefónica have reached an agreement for the creation of a joint venture to deploy Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) in Germany

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is proposing to add its new group capital calculation (GCC) requirement to the existing Insurance Holding Company Systems Model Act (Holding Company Act)

Finnish pension insurance company, Elo, has further strengthened its solvency position after the third quarter (Q3), it has revealed

Net income for the private US property & casualty (P&C) insurance industry dropped 26% in the first half of 2020, as the effects of COVID-19 began to hurt insurer underwriting results and investment gains, according to data analytics provider Verisk and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA)

Active engagement and stewardship have leapt in importance as a way for asset managers to drive sustainable change, Schroders Institutional Investor Study 2020 has found

Adani’s insurer and Lloyd’s of London syndicate Apollo has dropped Adani’s coal project after pressure from climate campaigners

Government bonds formed 52.9% of total investments made by Italian insurers in H1 2020, compared to 52.7% in H1 2019

Net sales of UCITS and AIF’s totalled €30bn in August, almost €100bn lower than the €124bn recorded in July 2020, according to the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA)

AIG is to separate its life insurance arm from its larger property and casualty (P&C) business

Nippon Life has invested approximately JPY 11.4bn in sustainable development bonds issued by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank)

EIOPA has launched a program of targeted training on insurance supervision for 17 national competent authorities (NCA)

The Malaysian general insurance industry is expected to contract by 2.2% in 2020, primarily due to weak consumer demand and suspension of economic activity due to the lockdown restrictions in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic, according to GlobalData

Skandia has upped its commitment to sustainable investments, after its portfolio showed signs of a “stable” recovery during Q3

The Stop Adani campaign and Pacific Climate Warriors will join forces on 27 and 28 October to call on Lloyd’s of London and its members to follow the lead of 23 major insurance companies, including several Lloyd’s syndicates, and stop insuring Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia

Sun Life Financial intends to acquire a 51% stake in Crescent Capital Group (Crescent), worth up to US$338m

The FCA and the PRA have sent a letter to the CEOs of insurance providers in the UK concerning their contingency plans once the Brexit transitional period finishes in 2021

The majority of countries in the European (re)insurance sector (17 out of 31) reported a median SCR ratio of over 200%, and for all countries a median MCR above 250% for year-end

Life insurance company Storebrand has seen its assets under management (AuM) increase by NOK 134bn to NOK 921bn for Q3 2020, up by 17% compared to the corresponding period last year, due to market returns and net flows from institutional customers

More than three quarters of insurers (78%) have said the impact of COVID-19 is accelerating their focus on ESG

US property/casualty insurers reported premium returns of $8.5bn during the first half of 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new AM Best commentary

The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI) proposal to amend the regulations around investments in infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) is expected to open an alternate source of investments for Indian insurers, according to GlobalData

Robeco has expanded its insurance team by appointing Clara Yan as head of insurance analytics

HM Treasury has today issued a call for evidence as part of a review into Solvency II (SII)

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has developed a draft application paper on the supervision of climate-related risks in the insurance sector, jointly with the Sustainable Insurance Forum (SIF)

Montefiore Investment is to manage the Nov Tourisme – unlisted shares Sustainable Stimulus France fund

Europe’s insurers are urging the European Commission (EC) to make European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIF) more attractive by making changes around fund design, portfolio composition and eligibility of investment assets

Assets under management (AuM) at the world’s 500 largest asset managers exceeded $100trn for the first time in 2019 – totalling $104.4trn, according to new research published by the Thinking Ahead Institute

Gross written premiums in the Hong Kong insurance industry hit $566.9bn in 2019, a year-on-year growth of 10.2%

Skandia has invested SEK 365m in a water bond issued by the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB)

AXA has completed the sale of its life and savings, property and casualty and pension businesses in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia to UNIQA, for a total cash consideration of €1bn.

Aspen has appointed Tony Rai as head of Aspen Insurance UK (AIUK)

Moody’s Investors Service has outlined the significant challenges for the insurance industry from the coronavirus pandemic and the consequent economic slowdown

Insurance Europe believes that an appropriately designed climate change stress test could provide information to help assess industry exposures, but said liquidity risk is already well managed due to existing regulatory provisions

The Achmea Innovation Fund is taking a significant non-controlling interest in Land Life Company and as a result will become the largest external investor in this reforestation company

The global green bond market is set to grow from around the current level of €662/672bn to €1trn by the end of 2021 and €2trn by the end of 2023, according to NN Investment Partners (NN IP)

Macquarie Infrastructure Debt Investment Solutions (MIDIS) has raised approximately €1.2bn from institutional investors to invest in sub-investment grade infrastructure debt

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has announced its commitment to align its prudential standards and practices with the International Association of Insurance Supervisors’ (IAIS) Common Framework for the Supervision of Internationally Active Insurance Groups (ComFrame), where appropriate

With less than a year and a half to go before the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) will no longer be available, several areas of concern remain, according to a new AM Best commentary

EIOPA is calling on the insurance sector to complete preparations for the end of the UK transition period

State Street Corporation and investment management solutions and service provider, SimCorp, have announced their intent to form a business partnership to provide a fully integrated, front-to-back investment outsourcing solution for insurance firms in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

Analytics firm SAS has launched a new solution to help US insurers navigate and comply with the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) Long-Duration Targeted Improvements standard – known as LDTI

Nippon Life has invested JPY 1.8bn in social bonds issued by the University of Tokyo (UTokyo)

Scandinavian insurance company Tryg has seen its investment income swing from DKK -29m in Q3 2019 to DKK 237m in Q3 2020

Morgan Stanley is to acquire Eaton Vance, a provider of advanced investment strategies and wealth management solutions with over $500bn in assets under management (AUM), for an equity value of approximately $7bn

Allianz Global Investors has appointed Matt Christensen as global head of sustainable and impact investing

The US insurance industry’s foreign exposure (including bonds, common stocks [affiliated and unaffiliated] and preferred stocks) was $566bn in BACV at year-end 2019, representing a 5.2% decrease from $597.7bn in total foreign investments at year-end 2018

US life insurer investment portfolio losses, which have generally been manageable amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, are expected to become more impactful to ratings in 2021, Fitch Ratings has said

Almost 80% of global asset managers now explicitly incorporate qualitative or quantitative ESG factor assessments into their investment processes, an increase of 5% compared to last year

MACIF has announced the launch of the MACIF Impact social and solidarity (ESS) company

Allianz Capital Partners on behalf of Allianz insurance companies (Allianz) has closed the acquisition of its first renewable energy installations in Poland from ENERTRAG, consisting of nine sites split into two projects, Dargikowo and Karlino

The European insurance industry is fully supportive of an EU Green Bond Standard (GBS), agrees with its proposed components and appreciates that it seeks alignment with the EU taxonomy for sustainable investments

The proliferation of ETF offerings, changing regulatory treatment, availability of actively managed products, and proven liquidity are changing US institutional bond investors' (insurance general accounts) views of ETF assets, with aggressive growth expected to occur in this area

German insurance company Gothaer is taking a further step towards sustainable capital investment with membership of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB)

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is commencing the roll-out of a new model for assessing the risks faced by banks, insurers and superannuation licensees

Swedish insurance company Länsförsäkringar Fondförvaltning has decided to remove all gambling operators from its portfolios

Skandia is launching a climate roadmap that will reduce Skandia Life's holdings in fossil fuels by 75% by 2025

Nigeria’s insurance market regulator, NAICOM, has agreed to further delay its revised plans to strengthen market capitalisation and limit the volume of premium flowing out of the country due to the COVID-19-driven economic slowdown

Following the completion of the acquisition of Seguradoras Unidas S.A. in Portugal in January, Generali has concluded the process of the legal merger of all its 100% owned insurance subsidiaries in Portugal

French life insurance continues to see a significant outflow since the beginning of the year, compared to 2019, however latest figures show unit-linked premiums are still making a major contribution to financing companies

LV= is in talks with Bain Capital LP over a potential deal for a full or partial sale

EIOPA is consulting on the use of climate change risk scenarios in the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA)

Insr has today approved the sale of insurance portfolios to Storebrand, initially announced in a stock exchange notification on 14 August 2020

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has announced it will be commencing with a review into insurer solvency standards

EIOPA has announced it is launching a European-wide study on diversification in internal models

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has selected Conning to provide the Association with its Economic Scenario Generator tool

The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company (DLIC) has announced that it is to introduce an ESG index as its benchmark for foreign equity investments managed in-house

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has released three documents that update the timelines for Canadian insurers to implement IFRS 17

Macquarie Infrastructure Debt Investment Solutions has announced a £120m long-term debt investment in a portfolio of energy from waste assets operated by Viridor

Everest Re has announced the appointments of Mark Kociancic as executive vice president and group chief financial officer, and Jim Williamson as executive vice president and group chief operating officer

Rothesay Life has announced that an agreement has been reached by GIC and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), to acquire Blackstone’s 36% shareholding in Rothesay Life

LGIM Real Assets has announced the forward funding of an £81.5m mixed use regeneration scheme in Glasgow, on behalf of its Build to Rent (BTR) Fund

Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva, has provided CLS Holdings with a £154m senior debt facility towards the refinancing of 12 UK assets

American Equity Investment Life Holding Company, Värde Partners, and Agam Capital Management have reached an agreement in principle to form a new strategic partnership

The FCA has confirmed that it has filed a ‘leapfrog’ application to appeal to the Supreme Court over the ruling of its Business Interruption (BI) insurance test case

Baloise has announced a new “strategic” long-term equity investment in property technology start-up, Houzy

MetLife has announced that it plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% from 2019 levels by 2030, and intends to originate $20bn of new green investments over the next 10 years

American Financial Group (AFG) has reached an agreement to sell GAI Holding Bermuda and its subsidiaries, which comprise the legal entities that own its Lloyd’s of London insurer, Neon, to RiverStone Holdings Limited

QBE Insurance Group (QBE) has announced it is signing on as a participant of the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, the United Nations (UN) Global Compact

Leading representatives from the UK and US financial and related professional services industries have joined together to propose a united business vision for future UK-US regulatory cooperation and dialogue

The European Commission’s (EC) plan to assess, as part of the Solvency II review, how the regulatory framework could be amended to further enable long-term investment by insurance companies, has been welcomed by Insurance Europe

Robeco is extending its exclusion policy for fossil fuel producers and users to its entire range of strategies to help combat global warming

Adjustments to Solvency II “should be coordinated as ideally as possible with the EU’s Green Deal plans”, and “not thwart them”, member of the GDV executive board and chairman of the management Jörg von Fürstenwerth has said

Aviva has completed a £142m bulk purchase annuity buy-in transaction with the TI Group Pension Scheme, whose sponsoring employer is Smiths Group, a leading industrial technology company

Munich Re has issued a subordinated green bond, the first in the reinsurer's history, with the volume issued amounting to €1.25bn

Climate change is leapfrogging Brexit as a key risk for the insurance industry, latest research has shown

The majority of global banks, asset managers, and insurers have said they are on track with their plans to migrate from IBOR-linked benchmark rates to alternative reference rates at the end of 2021, despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey by Moody's Investors Service

The New York Department of Financial Services will begin evaluating insurers' approaches to managing climate risk, although has stopped short of imposing penalties for non-compliance

Net premiums written (NPW) for AM Best-related mutuals grew by a modest 2.6% in 2019

Sompo has become the first Japanese insurance company to adopt a position on coal

Unipol Gruppo has completed the placement among domestic and international institutional investors of senior unsecured non-convertible notes, under its recently renewed EMTN programme, for a nominal amount equal to €750m with an issue date on 23 September and a 10-year tenor (therefore until its maturity on 23 September 2030)

The sound capital positions of the insurance sector before the COVID-19 shock provided undertakings with certain buffers, according to EIOPA, with a median Solvency Capital Ratio (SCR) of 213% being recorded in Q4 2019. A deteriorating solvency position has been observed in Q1 2020, with an SCR ratio decreasing by 12pp to 200%

US insurers are becoming increasingly attracted to private-equity (PE)-driven mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as “the most challenged institutional investors” continue to be “battered” by a return to ultra-low interest rates, a new report has said

Achmea has proposed to distribute capital to shareholders following the results of 2019 at a value of just over €169m.

Misconceptions around the suitability of timber as a major project construction material is hampering progress in in sustainable development, according to campaign group, the Time for Timber. It said insurers and investors must be more open to dialogue with the timber construction industry for the good of the economy and the environment

Korea Post is hiring a domestic asset manager for a global hedge fund mandate of unspecified value for its insurance unit

Zurich has announced the successful placement of €200m of dated subordinated notes

Národná banka Slovenska (NBS), the Slovakian national supervisory authority, has issued an interim measure banning new business from NOVIS Insurance Company, NOVIS Versicherungsgesellschaft, NOVIS Compagnia di Assicurazioni, NOVIS Poisťovňa a.s. (NOVIS), until specified conditions are fulfilled by NOVIS

The Bank of England (BoE) has announced that the UK base interest rate will remain at 0.1%

Norwegian insurance company Gjensidige has decided to distribute a dividend based on the profit for the 2019 financial year of NOK 6,125m.

Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) has announced that Mark Redman will succeed Peter McKellar as global head of private markets

The China’s general insurance industry is forecast to grow by 3.8% in 2020, compared to 5.7% registered in 2019, according to GlobalData

QBE Insurance Group (QBE) has grown its Premiums4Good portfolio to $904m and is on track to reach its impact investment allocation target of $1bn by 2021, according to the 2019-2020 QBE Premiums4Good Investment Impact Report.

Bulk annuity sales reached a “substantial” £12.7bn in the first half of 2020, with 'repeat buyers' predominantly driving market volume, analysis by Aon has found

Pension insurance company Varma is to expand its sustainable equities portfolio to up to €1bn and aims to make the entire €45bn investment portfolio carbon neutral by 2035

The result of the FCA’s business interruption (BI) test case is “broadly credit negative” for UK insurers and reinsurers, Moody’s has said, but despite the outcome the financial impact on individual insurers should be “manageable, net of reinsurance”

Reinsurers in the Asia-Pacific region will have to accept lower and more volatile investment yields or take on higher asset risks in the near term, and therefore may choose to revisit the management of their core business to deliver more profitable technical results, AM Best has said

Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc has spent £1m on shares at the insurer

Aviva has agreed to sell a majority shareholding in Aviva Singapore to a consortium led by Singapore Life. In Singapore, the new business will be initially branded as Aviva Singlife

Any future intra-EU investment protection and facilitation initiative should not lead to “sudden and retroactive changes to local investment frameworks”, Insurance Europe has argued

SCOR has successfully placed a dated subordinated Tier 2 notes issue in the amount of €300m

Cattolica Assicurazioni has stuck to its guidance for 2020 for operating profits of €350-375m, after reporting better than expected first-half operating profit

Swiss insurance companies achieved aggregate annual profits of CHF 15.2bn in 2019, which represents a 44% increase over the previous year

A new report published today by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation entitled Financing the circular economy – capturing the opportunity highlights the rapid growth in investment and other financial services activity in the circular economy, and also calls on the financial sector to build on this momentum

SCOR has recorded total unrealised gains on invested assets of around €680m, up €208m compared to 31 December 2019

Hamilton Insurance Group has appointed Megan Thomas as chief executive officer of Hamilton Re, the company’s reinsurance and insurance platform in Bermuda

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) completed £3.5bn of bulk annuity deals in H1 2020, down from the £6bn worth of transactions in H1 2019, its half-year results have revealed

International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) member Folksam is investing SEK 474m in the Swedish government's first green bond

The Bank of England (BoE) has today warned insurers about climate change liability risks and also the effect that climate change could have on sovereign debt

Europe-based institutional investors and those from around the world expect to increase their emerging market (EM) exposures, both in equity and fixed income, according to latest research

The Association of Mutual Insurers and Insurance Cooperatives in Europe (AMICE) has confirmed Oliver Scholler as a director on its board for a three year term

The IAIS is exploring whether there should be a differentiated capital treatment of certain eligible infrastructure (both equity and debt) as well as strategic equity investments within the ICS

General insurance business in India is expected to contract by 9% in 2020 due to COVID-19, a sharp decline from the 10% growth witnessed in 2019, according to GlobalData

Moody’s outlook for the global reinsurance sector has changed to negative from stable as a
challenging operating environment in the wake of the pandemic weakens profitability, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report

MAPFRE and Abante have joined forces with Macquarie to launch a €200m infrastructure fund

German Investment Funds Association BVI and Insurance Association GDV are making a joint appeal to the EU Commission to regulate US rating agencies more strictly and to monitor them more closely in respect of the pricing of rating data

Eight of Italy’s’ top ten insurers are likely to witness losses due to their heavy reliance to the life insurance sector, GlobalData has said

Modifications to prudential frameworks, in Europe and beyond, should be comprehensively tested to ensure their effectiveness in a variety of stressed market conditions, Insurance Europe has argued

The Hong Kong Insurance Authority (IA) has released provisional statistics of the Hong Kong insurance industry for the first half of 2020, indicating a growth of total gross premiums by 6% to $313.7bn over the corresponding period in 2019

The Prudential Reporting Authority (PRA) has set out its expectations in respect of the reporting of sensitivities of solvency position to various changes in market conditions

The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, Finanstilsynet, expects Norwegian banks and insurance companies to comply with the Norwegian authorities’ request to refrain from distributing dividends and repurchasing own shares at least until 1 January 2021

Zurich UK has appointed Tim Bailey to the role of UK CEO, succeeding Tulsi Naidu

Germany is introducing a new concept of ‘Green Twin Bonds’, where a green bond is issues with the same maturity and coupon as a conventional bond

The US life/annuity industry’s net income fell by 66% in the first half of 2020, compared with the same prior-year period, driven predominantly by a 10% decline in premiums and annuity considerations

Swedish insurer Folksam Group has invested SEK 10bn in the real estate credit fund Brunswick Real Estate Capital III (BREC III), its single largest investment ever

The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has appointed Gerald Gakundi to the position of director, supervision (insurance)

Total US insurer exposure to Other Long-Term Invested Assets was $401.8bn in BACV at year-end 2019, an increase of 10% from $365.2bn at year-end 2018, figures published by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)

Insurance Europe is calling for the European Cental Bank's (ECB) strategy review to include a plan to exit loose monetary policy measures as quickly as possible

US insurance companies reported high-yield bond exposure with a BACV of $227.5bn as of year-end 2019, which was an increase of 4.4% from $217.8bn at year-end 2018, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has said

Total return reinsurers are significantly underperforming the reinsurers that comprise the Bermuda composite, AM Best has said, despite having the potential to generate significantly higher investment returns than traditional reinsurers

European insurers disagree with the European Commission’s (EC) belief that the “strong capitalisation of the insurance industry means that increasing capital requirements would not have an adverse impact”

Brazil’s largest reinsurer, IRB Brasil Resseguros SA, has concluded a 2.3 billion reais ($420m) capital increase to address liquidity issues, but has not yet fully met regulatory requirements

Björn Storim has been appointed as head of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Central & Eastern Europe for BNY Mellon

Lloyd's of London is facing calls to ditch insurance in coal and tar sands, as it reopens its underwriting hall today

Ex-Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has joined Brookfield Asset Management as its head of ESG and impact fund investing

Norweigian life insurer, Storebrand, rated BBB (stable) by S&P, has mandated Danske Bank and Nordea as arrangers for a new senior unsecured bond issue with an expected tenor of up to five years

The International Accounting Standards Board has finalised its response to the ongoing reform of inter-bank offered rates (IBOR) and other interest rate benchmarks by issuing a package of amendments to IFRS Standards

Ageas has concluded an agreement with China Taiping Insurance Holdings (CTIH) to subscribe to a capital increase of its wholly controlled subsidiary Taiping Reinsurance (TPRe) for a total consideration of HKD 3,100m (around €340m)

Aon and Willis Towers Watson shareholders have approved all of the proposals necessary to complete the previously announced combination of Aon and Willis Towers Watson

Mercer has announced the appointment of William Gibbons as principal in its insurance investment solutions business

New capital requirements for Japanese insurers from their financial year starting April 2025 will provide greater clarity over their risks and profitability, Fitch Ratings has said

HSBC Global Asset Management (HSBC GAM) and Pollination Group have entered into a joint venture agreement to establish HSBC Pollination Climate Asset Management – subject to regulatory approval

European institutional investors, including insurance companies, are continuing to diversify their portfolios away from equity exposure, according to research by Mercer

MetLife Investment Management (MIM) originated $6.2bn in private placement debt for the first half of 2020, across nearly 100 transactions. This included $1.7bn of investments originated on behalf of institutional clients

MetLife, Aflac and Principal Financial Group have all backed a US accounting rulemaker plan to give them a year’s extension to comply with major new insurance accounting rules

Storebrand has dumped its investments in Exxon Mobil, Chevron and miner Rio Tinto in protest over their lobbying against the Paris Agreement

Legal & General Assurance Society Limited (Legal & General) has agreed a £275m buy-in transaction with the trustee of the Hitachi UK Pension Scheme

A rising valuation in Bitcoin is not enough to entice some institutional investors into the cryptocurrency market, as many have concerns regarding the infrastructure of this sector, new research has shown

Kent Sullivan has notified Governor Abbott that he will resign as Texas Insurance Commissioner in September to return to the private sector

The High Court has approved the transfer of business from Legal & General to ReAssure

Australia’s life insurance industry is expected to decline by 2.2% in 2020, compared to a growth of 5.1% in its pre-COVID-19 forecasts

Neuberger Berman has appointed Gilles Drukier as head of insurance solutions for the EMEA region effective 3 August 2020

European insurers believe that more “more prominence must be given to adaptation” around climate change

The UK long-income real estate market is now worth around £30bn and continues to grow rapidly, according to a new report, with pension schemes and insurers being the primary investors

Suncorp has broadened its fossil fuels policy to include restrictions on oil and gas production and exploration, making it the first insurer to adopt any policy restricting underwriting on oil & gas

The Japanese life insurance market is a "blueprint" for managing low interest rates, Fitch Ratings has said

Smaller municipal investment projects supporting the green restructuring of Europe “could be bundled in funds” to save costs and to aid smaller insurers which do not have the resources to manage many individual projects, the German Insurance Association (GDV) has said

AIA’s operating profit after tax (OPAT) increased by 5% to $2,933m in H1 2020, reflecting what it described as the “quality and growth of in-force business”

UNIQA’s investment income fell by 29% to €215.1m in H1 2020 due to write-downs on shares and fixed income securities

German insurance company Gothaer is offsetting its remaining CO2 emissions through climate protection projects in countries in the global south

Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority (IA) has launched a six-week public consultation on draft insurance group capital rules to tie in with the implementation of the new supervisory framework for multinational insurance groups tentatively in the first quarter of 2021

The German non-life insurance market is expected to maintain strong capitalisation in 2020 and 2021, Fitch Ratings has said, supported by strong profitability and positive reserves run-off

PFA Asset Management’s head of ESG, Andreas Stang, has joined insurance and pension company Topdanmark

Varma has joined a group of investors calling on pharmaceutical companies to develop a coronavirus vaccine and to work together in the fight against COVID-19

Allianz Benelux (Belgium) and Monument Re have agreed to transfer a closed book of classical life retail insurances together with 4,500 mortgage loans to Monument Assurance Belgium (MAB) and to transfer the related operations within 18 months after regulatory approvals

Corporate bond holdings are posing a risk to insurers’ balance sheets particularly during periods of macroeconomic uncertainty, AM Best has said

The risk exposures of the European Union insurance sector remain generally high compared to April as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, EIOPA's latest Risk Dashboard has revealed

More than half of institutional investors (55%) believe the majority of their ESG investments will be held in passive products such as exchange traded funds (ETFs) within the next five years, according to new research from Invesco

Legal & General (L&G) has completed a £530m buy-in for the Siemens Benefits Scheme securing the benefits of more than 2,000 UK retirees

Two-hundred and one mergers and acquisitions (M&A) were completed in the global insurance industry in H1 2020, up from 197 in H2 2019, according to Clyde & Co

Insurance supervision in Denmark should be further strengthened by increasing on-site inspection frequency, the IMF has said, as well as completing a solid risk assessment framework, and enhancing the oversight of cross-border business

Bond investment by Chinese insurance funds increased by 16.5% year-on-year (YoY), and long-term equity investment rose by 18.2% YoY, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) chairman Guo Shuqing has said

Insurance Europe is calling for a phased-in approach to ESG disclosures that allows financial market participants to implement comparable and meaningful reports

Achmea’s investment income from its own risk investment portfolio was €427m in H1 2020 down from €600m in H1 2019

Storebrand Forsikring AS a wholly owned subsidiary of Storebrand ASA, has entered into an agreement with Insr Insurance Group ASA (Insr) to acquire specific insurance portfolios from Insr

Total cash and invested assets of private equity (PE)-owned US insurers increased 7% to $343.5bn at year-end 2019 from $313.9bn at year-end 2018

Talanx Group has made its second investment this year in a high-speed internet project in France, by committing to contribute more than €60m to an international debt financing deal

Norway’s FSA is being urged to step up its risk monitoring and conduct its own stress tests of the country’s insurance sector

Rothesay Asset Management North America (Rothesay Asset Management NA) has promoted Robert Allard to the newly created role of chief investment officer for the Americas, where he will lead the firm’s US investment strategy in addition to his current role as head of Rothesay’s asset management business in the US

The general insurance (GI) market in China is forecast to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.1% between 2019 and 2023

Zurich’s net investment result on group investments, which includes net investment income, realised net capital gains, and losses and impairments, contributed $2.8bn to the group’s total revenues for the first half year of 2020, down 22% on the prior-year period

Dutch insurer Aegon has reported lower than expected first-half earnings, and has withdrawn
its 2019-2021 financial targets on the basis of the company’s results in the first half of 2020 and in light of the uncertain economic outlook due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Legal & General has completed its eighth transaction with the ICI Pension Fund in May 2020, bringing total liabilities secured to c.£5.8bn

German insurer Talanx Group achieved a consolidated profit of €325m in H1 2020 - only a third less than in the first half of 2019

Admiral Group has reported net investment income for H1 2020 of £32m up from £18.3m in H1 2019

Aggregated capital in the US life insurance sector would decline by $74.3bn (-35.7%) in an adverse scenario, the IMF has said, and the P&C sector would see falls of $149.8bn (-32%)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is calling for the implementation of a total balance sheet approach to insurer solvency assessment in the USA

The top ten insurers in Germany are reliant on life insurance, generating 77% of their GWP from life and health products, but may have more diversified books than other European contemporaries

Rothesay Life has insured just under £930m of deferred and pensioner liabilities in the Littlewoods Pensions Scheme through a bulk annuity transaction, which was completed in July 2020

The four major European reinsurers - Munich Re (Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) Rating AA/Stable), Swiss Re (IFS Rating A+/Stable), Hannover Re (IFS Rating AA-/Stable) and SCOR SE (IFS Rating AA-/Stable) - are among the top tier of global reinsurers by business profile, Fitch Ratings has said

Prudential has pledged to sell all of its $5bn Jackson Life operation and has signalled that it will keep its global headquarters in London

German insurer, Alte Leipziger, has signed the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

Total assets of Chinese insurers amounted to RMB 22trn at the end of H1 2020, up by RMB 1.4trn or 6.9% from the beginning of the year, latest figures published by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) have shown

AXA is considering selling its Singapore unit in a bid to raise cash

Berkshire Hathaway's second-quarter net earnings attributable to shareholders rose 87% to $26.30bn from last year's $14.07bn, as the value of its investment portfolio increased with the stock market

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is publishing an amended Insurer Solvency Return and Guidance Note (v5.3) in force from 1 September 2020 to improve the information provided through projections of solvency

Ageas's six month group net result stood at €791m for 2020, up from €606m in HY 2019 and includes the gain on the FRESH transactions of €332m

Bermuda-based specialty reinsurer Third Point Reinsurance and multi-line re/insurer Sirius International Insurance Group have entered into a definitive agreement for Third Point Re and Sirius Group to combine in a cash and stock transaction valued at $788m

The ABI has appointed Tavaziva Madzinga, CEO, Swiss Re, UK & Ireland (UKI) to its board

Phoenix Group's acquisition of ReAssure Group has brought an additional £7bn of long-term cash generation and has enabled it to increase its 2020 cash generation target range from £800m-£900m to £1.5bn-£1.6bn

Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc has hinted she could pull the insurer out of most of its international markets as she focuses the group on the UK, Ireland and Canada

MetLife's profit slid to $68m in Q2 2020, down 96% from a year earlier, on sluggish investment income, according to its latest financial results

The Talanx Group is further expanding its sustainable investment strategy with a credit-insured project bond of €250m, financing two Spanish solar projects with 50 MW capacity each

56% of insurers see data calculation as the biggest IFRS 9 challenge, a new survey from Clearwater has revealed

Asia Capital Reinsurance Group (ACR), a Singapore-headquartered reinsurance business, has implemented Clearwater for automated investment investment data aggregation, investment accounting and investment reporting

One hundred and forty environmental, indigenous and activist groups, whose signatories represent more than 24 million members, are urging insurers including Lloyd’s of London to drop their coverage of the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline in an open letter

Allianz has announced a 19% Y-O-Y fall in operating profit for Q2 2020 to €2.6bn

Legal & General has reported a half-year operating profit of £1.13bn, slightly down on the £1.154m posted a year ago

Hastings has agreed to be bought by Finland’s Sampo and South Africa’s Rand Merchant Investment (RMI) in a cash deal valuing it at £1.66bn ($2.2bn)

The number of US life/annuity (L/A) companies considering non-interest-sensitive investment strategies in the last 10 years is more than double those deemed interest-sensitive, AM Best has said

Direct Line has seen its investment return fall by 45.4% between H1 2019 and H1 2020

Luxembourg’s insurance market saw premiums fall by 19.54% during Q2 2020 compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year

Insurance Europe has welcomed the European Commission’s (EC) objectives set out in its roadmap for the Capital Markets Union (CMU) action plan, but highlighted that priorities should remain around addressing regulatory barriers to long-term and sustainable investment

European insurers are calling for free access to credit ratings for internal and regulatory purposes

Shareholders in Cattolica Assicurazioni have approved its conversion into a joint-stock company

AIG’s net adjusted investment income has dropped $537m from a year ago to $3.2bn.

According to its latest financial results, the decrease was as a result of $276m in private-equity losses compared with $238m in private-equity income a year ago

Argo Group’s net investment income decreased 96.5% to $1.5m in Q2 2020, from $42.8m in Q2 2019

Covéa is to invest a total of €1.5bn with Exor and in special purpose reinsurance vehicles managed by PartnerRe

The yield to maturity on Hiscox’s fixed income portfolio is now at its lowest ever point at less than 1%, thus serving to reduce future expected returns

CNP Assurances saw its dividends received in its French arm fall by €283m in H1 2020, causing a €60m reduction in revenue from own-funds portfolios, and requiring €17m (net of hedging) to be set aside in the guaranteed yield reserve

The National Bank of Belgium is urging Belgian credit institutions and (re)insurers to suspend their dividend payments until at least 1 January 2021

Asset concentration risk constrains the ratings of Italian insurers, Fitch Ratings has said, however, this risk is partly offset by strong capitalisation, which is typically a credit strength for rated Italian insurers

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has launched its first Single Rulebook

Legal & General has agreed a £100m bulk annuity transaction with the Countrywide Farmers Retirement Benefits Scheme, securing the benefits of 360 deferred members and 712 retirees

Profitability of the investment portfolio is the key risk and challenge in terms of materiality for insurers, EIOPA has said.

The authority conducted a qualitative questionnaire among national competent authorities (NCAs) in order to assess the materiality of risks stemming from the COVID-19 shock to the financial stability of the insurance sector, and found that the solvency position, exposure to banks, underwriting profitability, concentration to domestic sovereign and cyber risk are the other main risks.

Chubb has reported a net loss of $331m in Q2 2020, compared with net income of more than $1.1bn in the same period last year, as net catastrophe losses reached $1.51bn due to COVID-19

AXIS Capital’s net investment income fell from $93m in Q1 2020 to $45m in Q2 2020, primarily as a result of negative returns from credit and real estate funds

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has updated its capital management guidance for banks and insurers, in particular easing restrictions around paying dividends as institutions continue to manage the disruption caused by COVID-19

The surplus for the private US P&C insurance industry dropped by $75.9bn in the first quarter of 2020—its largest-ever quarterly decline—as the stock market suffered a major downturn, according to Verisk and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA)

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has appointed Charlotte Clark as director of regulation, replacing Hugh Savill who is retiring at the end of the year

Hong Kong’s HKD552bn ($66bn) insurance industry is set to grow by just 1.46% in 2020, compared to 6.3% in 2019, due to the economic impact of COVID-19 outbreak

Insurance and reinsurance undertakings should now be in a condition to comply with the deadlines set out in the Solvency II framework, EIOPA has said

Fifty-eight per cent of insurers are unlikely to make external manager terminations based on disappointing 2020 performance, latest data has revealed

MAPFRE’s earnings at the end of June was €271m, 27.7% lower than the result obtained between January and June of the previous year due to the impact of COVID-19

A group of financial sector associations – including Insurance Europe – has written to the European Commission (EC) to warn against proposals to introduce a new definition of “sustainability preferences” across the delegated acts of MIFID II, the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) and Solvency II

Thailand's non-life insurance market is expected to contract by 5.6% in 2020, according to GlobalData, as a result of the "severe impact of COVID-19"

French life insurers recorded net inflows of -€0.7bn in June 2020

Beazley achieved strong growth of 12% in H1 2020 with premiums increasing to $1,663.9m (2019: $1,483.6m)

Fifty-one per cent (2,269) of the total number of US insurers (4,482) filing statements with the NAIC reported outsourcing investment management at year-end 2019

China’s banking and insurance regulator, CBIRC, is raising the equity investment cap for insurers to 45%, in an effort to bring more long-term funds into the capital market

SCOR’s total investments reached €28.8bn in H1 2020, up 4.6% on H1 2019 (€27.5bn)

Zurich, the lead insurer for Canada’s controversial Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline, has decided not to renew cover for the project