Archive

  • R.I.P. traditional life insurance

    11 July 2022

    Low interest rates killed off European life insurance products that offered policyholders guaranteed annual returns. Even now as rates rise, David Walker finds practitioners are ready to bury the concept

  • ALM and capital management under Hong Kong's RBC

    07 July 2022

    Richard Chan, Hong Kong chief investment officer and Asia head of ALM at Axa, discusses Hong Kong's forthcoming risk-based capital regime and how insurers will respond

  • Bigger does not mean better for insurers

    02 June 2022

    Expanding an insurance business in good times typically meant growing profits. In today's tougher economic environment, Europe's largest insurers are being much more prudent about spending capital, and are only considering very careful expansion, as David Walker writes

  • Scepticism about the UK's Solvency II savings

    30 May 2022

    The UK government is projecting a meaningful reduction in capital requirements from its prudential regulation reforms. But some question whether the redesign will make any difference, as Christopher Cundy reports

  • Sarah Williams cultivates new risk strategy at Guardian Life

    10 May 2022

    Sarah Williams found a new job and a new hobby during the pandemic. Now chief risk officer at Guardian Life - and a keen gardener - she is planning to make both flourish, as she explains to Ronan McCaughey

  • Insurers happy with UK's Solvency II plans, but capital savings remain uncertain

    28 April 2022

    The government has grabbed positive headlines with its proposals to reform Solvency II, but the industry is cautious about the how they will pan out. Cintia Cheong reports

  • PIC's Giles Fairhead: traditional risks are colliding with global events

    19 April 2022

    Paul Walsh sits down with PIC's CRO Giles Fairhead to reflect on today's heightened risk environment, the post-pandemic work culture and two crucial regulatory reforms for the UK's pension insurers

  • C-Ross Phase II: risk-based capital with social characteristics

    15 April 2022

    The overhaul of China's prudential rules has introduced adjustments that allow regulatory influence over how insurers underwrite and invest - with the objective of producing a social good, as David Walker reports

  • Kick-off for Spain's life consolidation sector

    13 April 2022

    On the eve of MedVida's first acquisition of a legacy life book, chief financial officer Guy Horton speaks to David Walker about pioneering a market in Iberia

  • It's life Oliver, but not as we knew it

    08 April 2022

    European life insurers' capital consumption used to give their CEOs indigestion. But the "capital-lite" diets of Allianz and others has transformed the business, as David Walker discovers