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Industry-specific environment

2011 was a challenging year for the international insurance industry. Owing to numerous natural disasters, it went down as the second-most expensive year in industry history. Experts anticipate insured catastrophe losses of around USD 110 billion; in 2005 the figure was in the order of USD 125 billion. Yet international insurers proved to be robust: despite considerable loss burdens the capital resources of primary insurers and reinsurers remained on a high level. Overall, in a difficult environment insurance undertakings demonstrated their role as a stabilising element for the economy.

The European Commission’s Solvency II Directive continues to be of great significance to the insurance industry. Solvency II is intended to introduce European insurance regulation and a risk-based solvency system; these moves will change the insurance landscape in Europe. The specifics are currently under consideration by various government bodies in consultation with the insurance industry. The new regulatory model of Solvency II is to be implemented from 2013 onwards and will be fully effective from 2014. Even at this late stage before its launch, the European insurance and reinsurance federation still sees some imperfections in the regulations that need to be remedied. The Solvency II Directive will be implemented in German law through an amendment to the Insurance Supervision Act (VAG).

In the United States the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) adopted its “Credit for Reinsurance Model Law” in 2011. While this model law is not binding upon the individual states, some have already announced their intention to implement it in 2012. Upon adoption of the model law, the collateral requirements for loss reserves of foreign reinsurers in the state in question would be reduced from the current level of 100%. Some US states, such as Florida and New York, had already eased their collateral requirements for financially strong foreign reinsurers.

In Germany demand for insurance protection was stable. Investments, the profitability of the industry and employment in the insurance sector also remained largely unchanged. The industry has hitherto coped well with the challenges of the recent financial and economic crisis. The German Insurance Association (GDV) nevertheless expects premiums for 2011 to decline by 1.2%. This decrease is attributable to a normalisation of income from single premium business in life insurance and had already been anticipated by the GDV in the previous year.

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