Kading: Expand Global Insurance Markets; Oppose Isolationist Regulation
Expansion will create more affordable coverage, new products in developed and developing nations
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In remarks delivered today at the Reinsurance Association of America's (RAA) Cat Risk Management Conference in Orlando, Brad Kading, president of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR), the association representing the interests of 21 commercial insurers and reinsurers with underwriting operations in Bermuda, highlighted the enormous opportunity that would result from expanding insurance markets in both the developed and developing world. Addressing an audience of reinsurers, insurers, researchers, commercial modeling companies, regulators and others, Kading offered the following:
"The Florida Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has shed 56 percent of its policies in the last four years and now stands on the precipice of paying for a 1/100 year hurricane event without issuing any debt or forcing any Floridians to pay hurricane taxes – a huge accomplishment."
"Outside the state however, the US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is more than $24 billion in debt and is on an unsustainable path forward. This presents an opportunity to incentivize action to protect people and property, and to privately insure or reinsure future risk in the NFIP. National public/private insurance partnerships, such as the UK Flood Re program, are model programs that the US should follow."
"Outside the developed world, capital is now available to insure skyscrapers in China, expand crop insurance in India and increase the penetration of hurricane and earthquake insurance risk in Indonesia. With more than $60 billion in alternative capital now in the reinsurance market, and experiments underway to put this capital to work in commercial insurance, now is the time for policymakers to recognize that residual markets can be depopulated, developing markets can aggressively promote affordable insurance coverage and new products can be designed to meet 21st century technology needs."
"Impediments to this deployment are isolationist regulatory and tax measures which attempt to localize capital, limit diversification potential, impede cross border trade or penalize affiliate reinsurance transactions. We must unite to push back against this protectionist trend."
About ABIR: The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) represents 21 commercial insurers and reinsurers with underwriting operations in Bermuda. Bermuda is the center of global expertise on underwriting for catastrophe risk transfer products. For more information, please visit: www.abir.bm
For more information:
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SOURCE Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR)
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