From Artemis:
The world’s largest reinsurance company Munich Re reported that its target for full-year profitability remains on track for 2014 despite the continued “intense competition” in the market, as low levels of losses boosted its income for the third-quarter.Previously:
The quiet hurricane season has again helped the major reinsurers to a much better than expected quarter. Munich Re reported that its expenditure for natural catastrophe losses was well below the reinsurers expectations, coming in at just €100m, compared to €306m for Q3 2013.
The low-level of losses contributes to Munich Re maintaining its full-year profit target of €3 billion. CFO Jörg Schneider explained; “There will always be uncertainties – for example, the winter storm season just starting in Europe now. To date, however, losses from hurricanes in the USA and the Caribbean have been rather low. Overall, we consequently now expect to be able to achieve a profit of just over €3bn.”
Market conditions remain a challenge for Munich Re and the reinsurer continues to adjust its business mix in order to navigate the worst priced and softest areas of the market. Primary insurance and health continue to play a larger part in the reinsurers operations, while it continues to pull-back in some areas of the reinsurance market.
Chairman of Munich Re Nikolaaus von Bomhard explained the challenges Munich re faces; “The reinsurance market is still defined by intense competition among the established players. The number of well-capitalised reinsurers has been rising steadily over the years, whilst the demand for reinsurance on the part of equally well-capitalised primary insurers has at best been stagnating. Added to this, further capacities have been brought to the market by new players such as pension funds and hedge funds.”...MORE
Munich Re on Weather Disasters for the First Half of 2014
NO CHANGE IN RISK. DON'T EVEN THINK OF A PREMIUM REBATE!
From Pielke Jr.'s blog:
Munich Re has just released their tabulation of disaster losses for the first half of 2014. I thought I'd use the occasion to update the dataset shown above. The graph above shows global weather disasters as a proportion of global GDP. Note that 2014 represents January-June. I assume that the first half of 2014 global GDP is 2.5% higher than 2013. I also assume that total 2014 losses to date are all due to weather. Both assumptions err on the conservative side of things....Here's a 2013 headline:
Insurance: Hannover Re Reports Earnings Up 29%, Makes Munich Re Look Incompetent
See also Oct. 23's "The Dramatic Decrease In Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Wild Fires Is Very Good For Insurers: Travelers Hits an All-time High (TRV)", June's "Insurance: We've Passed the Height of the Tornado Season and Are Decisively Below Average (again)" and May's "Insuring the Apocalypse: Warren Buffett on Global Warming (BRK.B)"
