AM Best


Best’s Special Report: COVID-19 Highlights Weaknesses in Insurers’ Enterprise Risk Management


CONTACTS:

Mahesh Mistry
Senior Director, Criteria
+44 20 7397 0325
mahesh.mistry@ambest.com

Edward Kohlberg, CLU, FLMI
Director
1 908 439 2200, ext. 5664
edward.kohlberg@ambest.com

Richard Banks
Director, Industry Research – EMEA
+44 20 7397 0322
richard.banks@ambest.com

Edem Kuenyehia
Director, Market Development &
Communications
+44 20 7397 0280
edem.kuenyehia@ambest.com



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LONDON - SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 07:41 AM (EDT)
Reinsurance, and to some extent, insurance, has thrived on globalisation with limited barriers to entry. With this has come an increasing interconnectivity of risks between markets and participants, and the consequences of a higher risk of contagion between insurance and other sectors. As these risks have become intertwined in increasingly complex relationships, insurers cannot expect to be immune to economic slumps and supply chain disruptions, according to a new AM Best report.

In a new Best’s Special Report, “COVID-19 Highlights Weaknesses in Insurers’ Enterprise Risk Management,” AM Best notes that although enterprise risk management (ERM) has evolved rapidly over the past decade, the COVID-19 pandemic has served to emphasise that (re)insurers still can be affected by “unknown unknowns” and “unexpected accumulations.”

Mahesh Mistry, senior director, criteria, AM Best, and report author, said: “Conventional wisdom had led most observers to expect that the greatest impact of a pandemic would be to the life and health sector, but in reality, it is likely that property/casualty insurers and reinsurers will feel the brunt of the impact to this event. In turn, COVID-19 is testing insurers’ ERM approach, practices and resilience to current market conditions.”

The report concludes that while the insurance industry is well-capitalised, the impact from the pandemic will affect insurers’ balance sheet and operating performance to varying degrees.

However, AM Best believes lessons learnt from the past and by this pandemic should equip companies to better understand their exposures and adopt even more robust risk practices in the near future.

To access the full copy of the commentary, please visit http://www3.ambest.com/bestweek/purchase.asp?record_code=301410 .

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City.