The Risks of Hazard

The Risks of Hazard is going to try something new in January 2017, and we need your help, gentle reader.

A new kid is on the block underwriting private flood insurance in Florida today! Neptune Flood Insurance is an MGA combining a wealth of experience and some unique innovations to bring more options for property owners. Plus, it’s a great name for an MGA.

Did anyone reading the Intelligent Insurer last week notice their Most Read highlights? Here it is from November 15:

I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but they made a perfect microcosm of an interesting and important debate resounding through the corridors of insurance conventions.

Both articles are behind the subscription wall (to which I don’t have a key), but the blurbs illustrate the point brilliantly.

The first article is from an interview with Arno Junke, CEO of Deutsche Rück, and he cautions against becoming “obsessed with developing new products driven by technology and fears of competition from new entrants.”

Meanwhile in the second article, Florence Tondu-Melique - European COO of Hiscox, cautions that “digitally-focused new players in the insurance industry are increasingly threatening the market dominance of traditional insurers in a dynamic that could ultimately force the incumbent players to become nothing more than risk carriers.”

At the Risks of Hazard we explore what is happening in the cat underwriting market. Today we can share a bit of good news close to home – our InsitePro team are now working with Chubb Global Markets. It is exciting for us here because this is a group that is leading the entry of “private flood insurance” (i.e. actual flood insurance from the insurance industry) into the US.

As the US gets ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s sobering to think of the wildfires that are burning in the country’s southeast. After months of weather that has been way warmer and dryer than usual, there are several fires burning throughout Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia and (worst of all) Tennessee.