Pressure is rising on the insurance sector to play its part in supporting the global economy during this time of unprecedented crisis, and individual insurers and the sector’s representative bodies are working hard to let the world know that it is ready to support businesses and individuals as we all grapple with the impact of the coronavirus. Insurance companies have…
The French Insurance Federation (FFA) has presented a set of “solidarity measures” to Bruno Le Maire, the minister for the economy and finance. The FFA’s members have committed to contribute €200m to the Solidarity Fund set up by the French government to support micro-enterprises and the self-employed – sectors that have been hit hard by the economic, financial and social…
The German financial supervisor BaFin has issued a note that advises investors to carefully check whether information on the coronavirus pandemic contained in market letters and other promotional publications is accurate before trading in shares. “Currently, there could be cases in which investors receive recommendations for shares in companies professing to have the means to stop the spread of the…
Deutsche Bank has revealed that it may ask its German staff to cut their hours and take government money instead, as the loss-making German bank attempts to struggle through the coronavirus crisis, according to news agency Reuters. Earlier this month, the bank said the impact of the coronavirus outbreak may affect its ability to meet its financial targets. Last year,…
The Pan-Asia Risk & Insurance Management Association (Parima) will host the first of a new series of online conferences for members today, focused on the risk management and insurance matters triggered by the Covid-19 virus. It has also confirmed its new schedule of conferences for the rest of this year and into 2021. Parima said that in such a “dynamic…
Credit ratings agency Moody’s has changed the outlook for the Atradius group of credit insurers (ACyC), Coface and Clal Credit Insurance to negative from stable, because it believes they could be hit harder by the coronavirus outbreak than the credit crisis of 2008/2009. Euler Hermes and the Israeli Credit Insurance Company (ICIC) are subject to the same risks but retain their…
US insurance bodies have reaffirmed their stout resistance to any efforts to retroactively alter business interruption (BI) policies to cover coronavirus-related losses, after politicians in Ohio and Massachusetts last week tabled bills to force insurers to lift exclusions, following a similar proposal from New Jersey legislators. If the new laws were passed and copied across the US, the insurance and…
South Korea is the country with the highest exposure, of $66bn, from a prolonged slowdown in the Chinese economy caused by the coronavirus, according to analysis from UK-based risk management software and services company Russell Group. The group used a sample of historic first-quarter economic data for imports and exports to and from China and its scenario model outlines the…
The German insurance association, the GDV, has reminded policyholders and the wider market that they should not expect to be able to call on their standard business interruption (BI) policies for coronavirus-related losses, because it is generally excluded. In an article on its website quoting a number of German market insurance and reinsurance experts, the association said there is likely…
The Institute for International Finance (IIF), the Washington D.C.-based body that represents more than 450 financial institutions from approximately 70 countries, has called on the international community to respond to the economic and financial impact of coronavirus with a short, blunt, coordinated and action-oriented statement – backed by actual policies – just as the G7 did with success in 2008…