Insurance: "Coronavirus to be largest industry loss ever: Chubb’s Greenberg & Lloyd’s Neal"

From Artemis:

Senior insurance and reinsurance industry executives Evan Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Chubb, and John Neal, CEO of Lloyd’s of London, both agree that the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus could result in the largest industry loss for the sector in history.

Greenberg of Chubb explained during his firms recent earnings call, “I think this event is very likely, more than very likely, the largest event in insurance history when you add it all up, both asset side and liability side of the balance sheet.”

Speaking with the Financial Times, Neal of Lloyd’s said that the Covid-19 pandemic will be “the largest insurance challenge the industry has ever faced, I think by some way.”

Neal added that, in terms of the scale of the industry impact, “You’re into tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of loss that will be discussed over time.”

Greenberg further explained that a global loss event such as this pandemic is unprecedented and “surreal and catastrophic”, raising the “spectre” of risk and the need to charge a commensurate rate for it.

The industry “understands generally the need to get paid for properly for the exposures take on. I don’t see that trend changing,” Greenberg explained, saying this will only continue to become an increasingly important trend after the pandemic subsides.
Neal said that the insurance and reinsurance industry should expect a loss larger than hurricane Katrina, which is estimated around $50 billion.

He said, “The chances of the market making anything other than a notable loss in 2020 are zero.”
That aligns with estimates for the industry loss, such as Dowling & Partners estimate that the P&C industry loss alone will be between $40 billion and $80 billion.

As well as UBS’ revised Covid-19 industry loss estimate of between $30 billion and $60 billion..... 

...MUCH MORE

Here's the FT story:

Insurers face biggest-ever losses

The last line is:

"Lloyd’s has set aside £15 million to fund research into how pandemics and other big events can be better dealt with in future."

As the kids say: "You had one job..."