Natural hazards cost global economy $98 billion in first half of 2016
The economic impact of natural hazards in the first half of 2016 was $98 billion according to
Aon Benfield. Initial estimates reveal that insured losses were $30 billion, the highest level since 2011 although lower than the 10-year average of 31 billion.
Almost half (47 per cent) of the insured losses were in the US and covered by private or public insurers; the higher insurance penetration rates in the US meant that the percentage of losses covered by insurance (30 per cent) was higher than the 10-year average of 28 per cent.
Insured losses were led by severe connective storms at 42 per cent of the total insured losses and Texas accounted for 55 per cent of the global total of $12.3 billion.
The first half of the year also produced at least six individual events for which insured losses reached $1 billion, 5 of them were weather-related.
Insurance industry unprepared for driverless cars
Driverless cars will be available to consumers within a few years but the insurance industry is lagging the technology’s advance a KPMG report says.
The survey of senior leaders representing many of the UK’s largest insurance companies and brokers found that just 10 per cent have strategic plans in place for the arrival of the vehicles.
It seems that insurers are not rushing to draw up plans as most (67 percent) believe that it will be 20 years before the vehicles become mainstream; this is largely due to safety and consumer acceptance issues they say.
Not that the senior insurance leaders polled are dismissive of the benefits from the technology in the long term with 89 per cent believing they will reduce claim frequency and severity.
“Insurers need to overcome their apathy towards driverless vehicles. There are clear opportunities to develop new income streams for those firms that are prepared to step out of the pack and embrace the changes taking place in the sector,” said Murray Raisbeck, insurance partner at KPMG.
Canadian brokerage bombarded with messages for US senator
A Canadian insurance brokerage has seen an uptick in people contacting their Saint John offices but it’s not quite what it seems.
Far from being a strong surge in insurance business inquiries, Mitchell McConnell is being bombarded with messages from south of the border from voters who think the firm is US Senator Mitch McConnell.
"We'll get a comment along the lines of 'Senator, you're not doing your job. Pick up your socks,' to just blathering profanity to just everything in between," Chris Bourque, president of Mitchell McConnell Insurance told CBC News.
There are even those that refuse to believe that the insurance brokerage is not the Senator even when it has been politely pointed out; Mitchell McConnell staff call those “tinfoil hat folks” Bourque joked.
