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Allianz is looking to expand its reach from customers in the global insurance sector and deeper into multinational insurance. Its international corporate insurance carrier, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), will meet the increasing demand for cross-border coverage from large and medium-sized companies, adjusting to the complexities of the new market with substantial changes to its structure and strategy.

The AGCS multinational set-up will feature a new market-facing team, dedicated investments in data and technology, and expanded customer services. It will also integrate the well-established AGCS captive solutions team led by Brian McNamara to serve customers with a broad range of services from traditional, multi-line global programs to captive fronting and reinsurance and hybrid combinations of traditional and alternative risk transfer.

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Aston Lark Ireland closed its Dublin head office yesterday (July 14) to pay respects to former associate director Barrie Dunphy, who was laid to rest on the same day.

“It is with great sadness and heavy hearts we share the news that our dear friend and colleague Barrie Dunphy recently passed away,” posted the insurance broker on LinkedIn. “Associate director Barrie worked within the wholesale and commercial divisions in Aston Lark, previously Robertson Low, for nearly 20 years and during that time he had a huge impact on the many people he met.

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Cowell brings with her 20 years of experience across senior human resource roles.

“I am simply delighted to be joining Sedgwick’s colleague resources team and to be a part of this remarkable global business,” Cowell said. “I was attracted to Sedgwick as soon as I learned about its purpose-led ethos of ‘caring counts,’ which puts empathy at the heart of everything they do. The company’s strong focus on organisational culture and expansive solutions to help people and businesses really make Sedgwick stand out as an employer and provider of choice.”

Her enthusiasm was backed by Sedgwick’s CEO for the UK, Paul White, who noted that Cowell brings a passion for organisational culture and leadership.

“Vicki is a values-driven leader, and Sedgwick is renowned for being a values-driven business,” he said. “We have an established track record in working with business leaders, and I am excited to partner with Vicki in implementing world-class people strategies in the UK.”

Similarly, Christine Millar, Sedgwick’s international head of colleague resources, noted the importance of bringing in top talent.

“For firms to consistently attract and retain talent in a competitive, post-Brexit global market against a backdrop of rising inflation, focusing on the colleague experience is key,” she said. “Vicki’s wealth of experience will further help us in doing just that.”

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“Even in the face of a challenging economic environment, insurance remains a vibrant, resilient and growing industry – and reaching the $7 trillion mark for global premiums is a major milestone,” said Swiss Re’s group chief economist Jerome Haegeli. “However, these are not easy times, and the insurance industry will need to keep a close eye on inflation. As the world gets more expensive, so do the costs of accidents and natural catastrophes, and this makes claims more expensive.”

The global economy’s sharp decline, coupled with a decades-high inflation, will weigh on total premium growth, Swiss Re warned, resulting in a below-average 1.2% annual average growth in real terms over 2022 and 2023. It will increase claim costs for non-life insurance, with profitability pressure rising most in lines where supply shortages are leading to price increases on top of overall inflation, such as property and motor. High wage and healthcare inflation is also pushing up the cost of claims for casualty and health insurance.

There is a silver lining, however. “As central banks take action to combat inflation, higher interest rates will support insurers’ profitability in the medium term,” Haegeli said.

Rising claim costs will extend rate hardening, in effect restoring underwriting profitability and paving the way for real premium growth in 2023.

Life premiums are forecast to increase by 4.8% in nominal terms in 2022 and reach $3.1 trillion by year-end. Although this equates to a 0.2% contraction in inflation-adjusted terms, they will return to growth in 2023. Heightened risk awareness, demand for protection-type products post pandemic, and a subsiding volume in COVID-19-related claims will support improved profitability in life insurance.

Non-life premiums will rise by 7.1% in nominal terms in 2022 – a 0.8% growth accounting for inflation – reaching $4.1 trillion by year-end. Swiss Re forecast a further 2.2% premium growth in real terms in 2023 based on ongoing rate hardening, with commercial lines going stronger than personal lines.

The US remains the largest insurance market in the world, with $2.7 trillion total premium accounting for just under 40% of total global insurance volume based on 2021 numbers. It is followed by China, with $0.7 trillion in premium, or 10.1% of global insurance volume. Japan comes in third, accounting for 5.9% of global insurance volume.

Rounding out the five largest insurance markets in the world are Europe’s strongest players. The UK accounts for 5.8% of the total global insurance volume and showed strong growth in nominal terms in 2021, its total premium volumes rising by 16.7%. France holds a 4.3% market share in global insurance volume but showed equally impressive growth in total premium volumes, which rose by 24% the same year.

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David Weymouth has been appointed as chairman of the board of both Pension Insurance Corporation Plc (PIC) and PIC parent firm Pension Insurance Corporation Group Limited (PICG).

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to join a growing business with such a clear commitment to focus on and provide high levels of service to the many pensioners that make up PIC’s customer base,” commented Weymouth, who will join the boards on October 01.

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Roderick Graham Butcher has been appointed as the liquidator for insolvent retail insurance broker Eunisure Limited.

Prior to entering liquidation, the FCA-authorised (Financial Conduct Authority) company placed retail life protection business on behalf of policyholders. Products spanned term life insurance, whole of life insurance, critical illness insurance, and income protection insurance.

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HM Treasury has appointed seasoned financial industry leader Ashley Alder as the new chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), effective in January 2023.

Alder began his career as a lawyer in London in 1984 and practised in Hong Kong for over 20 years. From 2001 to 2004, he served as the executive director of the Securities and Futures Commission (FSC) and then returned to private practice at Herbert Smith LLP as head of Asia.

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Markel International, a subsidiary of Markel Corporation, has announced the appointments of Matthew Rowland and Clifford Blayney as senior underwriters in its renewable energy team, where they will specialise in offshore wind. The appointments are the latest in the build-out of the energy team.

Rowland and Blayney will be based in Markel’s London office and will report to Tom Baker, head of renewable energy for Markel International.

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In January of this year, Lloyd’s of London raised eyebrows across the insurance market when it was reported that the world’s oldest insurance marketplace was exploring a move away from the Richard Rogers-designed building.

Today, however, the Financial Times (the FT) has put those minds opposed to the potential relocation at ease with the news that Lloyd’s plans to stay in its landmark building until at least 2031. The publication noted that the successful transition to home-working during COVID-19 led some brokers and insurers to predict the death of face-to-face trading, and that today’s announcement affirms the importance of face-to-face contact for the global insurance marketplace.

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Gilo labelled abuse settlement values “derisory” and said that factoring in costs and fees he took £3500 less home from his original claim than for the disclosure of his identity.

“It is disturbing that a three-day data breach which we think was likely to be accidental has had almost as much value as the abuse settlement with an impact lasting decades,” said Gilo.

During October 2017, when the survivor and the insurer were in a dispute over the contents of a critical review that garnered media interest, Ecclesiastical published a letter on its website that Gilo said included his full name 14 times. This was despite the survivor wanting to keep his identity and links to the abuse private.

The letter, which Ecclesiastical had made a botched attempt to redact, remained on the insurer’s website for more than two full days before being taken down. The document being shared openly felt “extremely excessive and intimidating” at the time, Gilo told Insurance Business.

Insurance Business understands that Ecclesiastical has previously attempted to settle the claim for in the region of £10,000.

Elliott Review

As part of the settlement agreement, the insurer has agreed to mediation around its response to the 2016 Elliott Review, which examined the church’s handling of Gilo’s allegations of “sadistic” abuse perpetrated by senior church figure Garth Moore, who died in 1990, when the survivor was around 16 years old in the 1970s.

The damning report was critical of church safeguarding practices and found that the alleged assault had been disclosed multiple times over decades, including to senior church figures, without action being taken or records being made. This is according to Gilo and corroborated by a Guardian report from the time.

Ecclesiastical has been accused of repeatedly disparaging, including on television and at a government backed CSA inquiry, the review’s findings that its advice to its client had led to a severing of pastoral care for the survivor.

In a 2020 session at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Ecclesiastical’s former claims director David Bonehill and ex-compliance director John Titchener were forced to concede that the insurer’s advice had led to the church withdrawing its pastoral support from Gilo for two weeks.

In a report that followed the session, IICSA condemned Ecclesiastical for being “unable to recognise or accept its failings” as regards the report’s findings, and for failing to provide evidence “in a candid manner”.

Mediation

The Elliott Review mediation has been welcomed by key stakeholders.

“It’s good that Ecclesiastical Insurance is finally coming to mediation over their repeated public dissembling around the review into my case,” Gilo said.

Ian Elliott, the review’s author, said that Ecclesiastical had made “damaging and untrue” statements regarding the accuracy of his assessments.

“I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and welcome the agreement to reach a mediated settlement with Ecclesiastical Insurance regarding the dissembling that has marked their response to the review that I undertook of a historic abuse case for the Church of England,” Elliott said.

Ecclesiastical has “acknowledged that this data breach occurred in a wider context of [its] failings towards survivors, some of which were explored in IICSA, and that those failings significantly aggravated this data breach”, according to Gilo’s solicitor in the data breach case, Slater & Gordon head of abuse law Richard Scorer.

“I hope that these events will be part of an urgent and radical reshaping of [the insurer’s] behaviour towards survivors, and the full implementation of the Elliott report,” Scorer said.

Bishop Alan Wilson, who attended the settlement meeting, criticised the insurer for “[steering] well clear of any external independent accountability whilst parading and hiding behind its Guiding Principles [the insurer’s guidelines for handling CSA claims brought in in 2016 and updated in 2018].”

An Ecclesiastical spokesperson said: “We do not comment on the details of individual claims. We are sorry for the distress caused to the complainant and have apologised unreservedly.”

A spokesperson for the Church of England, which was not involved in the settlement and was unable to comment on it but was involved in the Elliott Review, said that “the rights of survivors and victims to protect their data and our duty to use that data properly in any aspect of our work is paramount.”  

“We will continue to unreservedly apologise for the Church’s poor response to survivors and victims, as highlighted at IICSA, and are committed to engaging with them to inform our future work,” the spokesperson said.

Free support is available at NAPAC if you have been affected by this story:
Telephone – 0808 801 0331 
Email – [email protected] 
Website – napac.org.uk 

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