With 2020 closed and the year-end results of most European insurers now published, the key word for the sector seems to be 'resilience'. While some have been scratched, and others more deeply injured by the impact of the pandemic on financial markets, no insurer seems to have suffered unhealing wounds.
Insurance Asset Risk's 6th issue (free to download here) takes the pulse of insurance investors with six chief investment officers from both sides of the Atlantic.
The issue also reveals the winners of our annual awards and analyses the findings of Insurance Asset Risk's recent proprietary surveys.
The latest issue also explores the familiar themes of illiquid investments and latest investment trends in Asia, as well as less familiar themes, such as crypto currency investments.
For our first issue of 2021, it emerges that chief investment officers are coming into this year relieved to have avoided a catastrophe, and expecting business as usual in a more 'normalised' environment.
With that, we can expect to see continued growth in allocation to illiquid assets and private markets, and the question of sustainability – which disappeared from everyone's lips for most of 2020 – now back at the forefront of people's minds.
And, of course, there is regulation, with the European Union resuming its work on the Solvency II review, tied in with other pieces of regulation such as the Capital Markets Union action plan. And let's not forget the UK, which is conducting its own review of the regulation. Whether a post-Brexit UK Solvency II will be very much different to its continental counterpart remains a big question.
In early 2020, it looked like insurers' general accounts might be violently derailed as COVID-19 gripped the markets. One year on, it's not 'full-steam ahead' for chief investment officers yet, but they see light at the end of the tunnel. Brighter times ahead? Or the light of an oncoming train?
Download your copy to find out.
For more information about:
Issue 1 – Are we there yet?
Issue 2 – Insurers' role in climate capital raising
Issue 3 – COVID-19 chills markets
Issue 4 – On the road to sustainable investing
Issue 5 – Central bankers bring back the bull
For more information on the print issue, please email: subs@insuranceassetrisk.com