Setting the Scene: Insurance Reform: Opportunity or Threat?

This PowerPoint report, presented at the CEA International Insurance Conference in Athens, Greece, by Steven Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, discusses whether financial reform will help or hinder the insurance industry’s capital management and if it will anticipate problems related to major sovereign defaults. The presentation also discusses how reform will likely affect merger and acquisition activity, noting that growth in emerging markets with low insurance penetration and density implies much room for development. Emphasizing that the insurance sector’s business model is robust and generally able to withstand and conduct normal operations during a sudden and sharp asset value meltdown, a soft pricing market, an eroding exposure base and a challenging (man-made and natural) catastrophe environment, the presentation concludes that reform should not change this model.