Being the fifth super typhoon of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season, today marks the 8th Year Anniversary of the devastation of Super Typhoon Yolanda, internationally known as Typhoon Haiyan. With strong winds reaching more than 300 kilometers per hour, Haiyan was classified as a category 4 hurricane, later elevated to a category 5. The typhoon made landfall in the country on 4:40 AM of November 8, on the island of Samar. Courtesy of Movement Generation For the Filipino, Yolanda is definitely an experience and a fear to remember. the super typhoon wreaked havoc and caused high damage in many parts of Samar, Tacloban, and Leyte. Many structures and establishments were not just damaged, but flattened to the ground. The surge left thousands of trees and street posts toppled down, with hundreds of cars piled on one another. Sebastian Stampa, head of a disaster assessment team from the UN, described the "destruction on massive scale", as there were "cars thrown like tumbleweeds and the streets are strewn with debris". Courtesy of Focolare Movement 453 local and international flights were canceled, as communications in majority of the Visayas region broke down. Power outages were widespread, and major roads were blocked impassable. Yolanda ranks first in the costliest typhoons to ever strike the Philippines to date, with damage totaling to an estimate of Php 95.5 billion, or around USD 2.2 billion. The initial death count was at 6,300. This count, however, only amounts to the casualties that were physically reported. The number of the dead, the injured, the displaced and the isolated quickly rose as weeks passed, bringing casualties to up to 10,000, and the displaced at 800,000. 8.7 million citizens were reported to be affected directly by the storm. Typhoon Haiyan quickly became a historic example and lesson in disaster preparedness and calamity response. After the havoc, the Filipinos have undoubtedly taken measures in preparation and have been more obedient and vigilant. Courtesy of PNA As climate change continues to worsen in the planet, there are many typhoons still expected to hit even stronger than Haiyan. By then, we hope we have learned our lesson, and we have armed ourselves equipped and prepared. Lest we forget. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/event/Super-Typhoon-Haiyan https://scijinks.gov/haiyan/ https://www.focolare.org/gb/files/2014/11/2014-11-12TyphoonPhilippines3.jpg https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2013-typhoon-haiyan-facts

The Philippine insurance industry as a whole posted an aggregate net profit of PHP24.6bn ($490m) in the first half of 2021, an increase of 29.4% from PHP19.03bn in the corresponding half of 2020, according to data released by the Insurance Commission (IC). In a statement, Insurance Commissioner Dennis Funa said the combined net income of life and non-life insurers and mutual benefit associations (MBAs) as of end-June rose because of improving economic conditions and greater consumer interest in insurance coverage amid a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, Premiums climbed by 37.5% to PHP187.1bn during the first six months of 2021 from PHP136.1bn in 1H2020. “The growth of the life and non-life insurers’ and MBAs’ aggregate premiums and contributions earned and their aggregate net income in the second quarter of 2021 are indicative of economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr Funa said. With COVID-19 still posing a threat to lives and livelihoods, the amount of benefits paid by insurers to clients jumped by 46.7% to PHP64.9bn year-on-year from January to June. The IC said these latest figures on the industry’s end-June performance came from unaudited financial statistics submitted by 128 of the 135 licensed insurance players in the country. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

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Typhoon Kompasu, locally called Maring, made landfall on October 11 near Fuga Island, Cagayan. PAGASA raised Tropical Cyclone Warning System signal #2 over several areas in Luzon as Typhoon Maring caused widespread flooding, heavy rains and several landslides in these areas.

The global reinsurance sector has generated weak underwriting results in the past four years (2017-2020), and 2021 is shaping up to be another below-par year, says S&P Global Ratings (S&P). The industry continues to suffer from higher-frequency and -severity natural catastrophe losses, fuelled by rapid urbanisation and climate change. In addition, this year is likely to be the fifth in a row in which the top 21 global reinsurers rated by S&P exhaust their annual natural catastrophe budgets. The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened industry losses, especially among these top reinsurers. Overall, this cohort of reinsurers generated more than 70% of the global net reinsurance premiums written in 2020. Capital Despite the elevated losses, the industry's capital adequacy has been robust and remains redundant at the 'AA' confidence level, aided by capital raises and financial markets' recovery, says S&P. However, the industry still faces secular challenges and competitive market dynamics, remaining fragmented as it battles the commoditisation of its business. Once a competitive advantage, capital now is viewed as a relatively cheap commodity because of the influx to the sector from nontraditional sources, sustained by dovish monetary policies. Still, reinsurers have struggled to earn their cost of capital (COC), and 2022 could follow the same trend. As a result, S&P says it maintains its negative outlook on the global reinsurance sector. “This outlook reflects our expectations of credit trends over the next 12 months, including the distribution of rating outlooks, existing sector-wide risks, and emerging risks. As of 25 October 2021, 29% of ratings on the top 21 global reinsurers were assigned negative outlooks, 62% were assigned stable outlooks, and 9% were assigned positive outlooks,” said the global credit rating agency. Countermeasures Many reinsurers have adopted a hybrid model, writing both reinsurance and specialty insurance to hedge against the challenges of the reinsurance sector. Indeed, an increasing number of the top 21 global reinsurers are expanding their insurance more than their reinsurance business, taking advantage of better pricing on the primary commercial side while aiming to reduce volatility. S&P believes reinsurance pricing momentum will firmly support premium rate increases during 2022 renewals, given the sector's recent underperformance, although the pace of rate increases may slow, in part due to ample capacity. While capital is not in short supply, reinsurers overall have shown discipline in capacity deployment so far, leveraging their alternative capital vehicles to manage their peak natural catastrophe zone exposures. Reinsurers also continue to push for higher premium rates wherever they can take them in property/casualty (P&C) lines, with terms and conditions remaining in sharp focus, especially for the exclusion of pandemic and silent cyber coverage. However, reinsurers are only price-takers in this insurance cycle, since this time the primary market is leading pricing dynamics. While the recovery of economic and social activity has generated optimism, reinsurers remain cautious about reserve adequacy in view of casualty loss trends for business written during the recent soft cycle, as well as given inflationary pressures, potential COVID-19 loss developments, climate change, and the risks of investing in uncertain times. Navigating uncharted waters Reinsurers are navigating uncharted waters with uncertainty galore on both sides of the balance sheet. While reinsurers are price-takers in this insurance cycle, the winners will be those that combine underwriting discipline with innovative risk solutions while enhancing their value proposition to cedents and insureds. S&P said, “Our negative outlook could improve if we come to believe the sector may earn its COC, but we don't expect this will happen before 2022, at the earliest.” The top 21 global reinsurers referred to are Alleghany, Arch, Ascot, Aspen, AXIS, China Re, Everest Re, Fairfax, Fidelis, Hannover Re, Hiscox, Lancashire, Lloyd’s, Markel, Munich Re, PartnerRe, Qatar Insurance, RenaissanceRe, SCOR, Sirius, and Swiss Re. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

Fitch Ratings has said that it expects double-digit percentage premium rate rises for property catastrophe cover in 2022 due to excess losses in 2021 and the prospect of higher natural catastrophe claims frequency and severity in future. This would make 2022 the fifth successive year of price rises. The price increases should help to bolster the sector’s underwriting profitability as they gradually feed into reinsurers’ underwriting margins. Fitch has previously also cited rising prices as a key reason for its view that the sector outlook was improving for 2022. Prospects of a strong economic recovery and lower pandemic-related losses were also key. In a report last month, Fitch noted that several reinsurers had said at September’s Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous and October's Baden-Baden Reinsurance Meeting that they expected further price rises in January renewals. This is largely due to increasing natural catastrophe claims linked to climate change. 2021 Fitch expects 2021 to become one of the five most costly years this century for global reinsurers. Severe floods in central Europe in July and Hurricane Ida in the US in late August and early September will, together, have caused insured losses of more than $40bn. Globally, there were about $40bn insured losses in 1H2021. The global total for 2021 will also reflect several smaller catastrophe events in 2H2021, including a series of wildfires, and will exceed the amount that reinsurers had budgeted for. Reinsurers have shown discipline in prioritising pricing for increased risk rather than seeking to undercut competitors to gain market share. The growth of catastrophe bonds to pass risk directly to investors could also become an important factor to mitigate the sector’s exposure to climate change risk in the coming years. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

The insurance industry across ASEAN has adapted well to the changes forced by the COVID-19 crisis, which disrupted economies and financial markets, said Monetary Authority of Singapore assistant managing director Marcus Lim, at the ASEAN Insurance Summit on Wednesday morning. “When we last met in 2018, the focus of the summit was on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how digitalization and new technologies could impact the insurance sector,” he said, during his keynote address at the summit, organized by the ASEAN Insurance Council and the Singapore College of Insurance. “Nobody could have foreseen the speed at which we had to embrace digitalization since then.” Beyond the disruption to financial markets, the pandemic also forced insurers to transform the way they worked and how they interacted with customers. Despite the turbulence of last year, the insurance market across Asia remained resilient, with Asia-ex-Japan registering a 2.9% growth in total gross written premiums in 2020. “While this was slower than the robust 6.8% growth in 2019, it was still significantly stronger than the global experience, which saw a decline of 2.1%. Looking ahead, the Swiss Re Institute has forecasted a global premium growth of 3.3% in 2021, largely driven by China and emerging Asian economies,” Mr Lim said. Creating resilience The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of resilience, reflected in this summit’s theme, as the world continues to wrestle with what the new normal looks like. Mr Lim noted that unity with policyholders and regulators would serve the insurance industry well and allow them to create a more resilient future amidst such uncertainty. He highlighted the various relief measures that were introduced in several jurisdictions to help customers maintain their insurance coverage in a time of financial crisis. Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore had insurers extending the grace period for policyholders to pay their premiums, while insurers in Brunei and Singapore automatically provided their customers with free COVID-19 coverage. “Asian insurance regulators also played their part by adjusting regulatory requirements to enable insurers to better manage the disruptions,” he said. “Indonesia’s OJK, Bank Negara Malaysia and MAS were among the regulators that extended the deadlines for regulatory submissions. The Philippines Insurance Commission introduced temporary relaxation of capital requirements. The trust and goodwill built up between insurers and their customers during this period will serve both sides well.” Strength in numbers The pooling of risk is an integral part of the insurance business and sharing expertise and information only makes the industry stronger. “While ASEAN's insurance market continues to see strong growth, there are areas where work remains to be done for us to be more resilient as a region,” he said. In this regard catastrophe and disaster risk remained in focus for ASEAN, even amidst the pandemic, with Mr Lim pointing out the continued efforts of the Southeast Asia Disaster Relief Insurance Facility and the ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance program to create data and resilient funding for the region. “Stronger partnership between the public and private sectors will also be key. The Global Asia Insurance Partnership brings together industry policymakers and academia to undertake research and co-create innovative risk financing solutions to strengthen Asia's resilience against large scale risk,” he said. “Platforms such as this will play an important role in helping leverage our respective strengths.” He also noted climate change to be existential crisis of our generation and that regulators must continue to steer the insurance industry towards greater sustainability while recognizing the unique challenges that the region faces. “In particular, there is diversity in the level and nature of social, economic and industrial development among member states. This means that an approach suited for more developed markets cannot be applied in this region wholesale. It is not practical to expect our member states to suddenly cut their reliance on energy intensive industries, but this should not deter us from taking steps towards achieving an orderly transition to industries that support low carbon emissions and sustainable resource management,” he said. More education programmes launched Also at the Summit, the ASEAN School of InsurTech, Analytics and Innovation was officially opened. An initiative of the ASEAN Insurance Education Committee and endorsed by the ASEAN Insurance Council, the School was conceived by Singapore College of Insurance (SCI) and set up in collaboration with the regional training institutes. Its aim is to align with the vision of the World Economic Forum’s Digital ASEAN launched in 2018, to fully unlock the benefits of the 4th Industrial Revolution, to develop the human capital pool of the ASEAN and to ensure that its citizens have the skills needed to thrive in the digital and technology driven world. Governed by the principles of inclusivity, access and impact, the School has rolled out the ASEAN Certificate in Insurtech 4.0 and the ASEAN Certificate in Data & Data Analytics in English and in multiple ASEAN languages, delivered on an award-winning mobile learning platform. The Certificates offered under the ASEAN Digital Competency Framework (ADCF) developed by the SCI, will stack up towards Graduate Certificates. Digital skills badges will be awarded to recognise the learning achievement at different levels. Visit School at ASEANDigitalSchool.com to find out more. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

Being the third intense storm in the consecutive typhoons to strike the Philippines in 1995, Typhoon Angela, locally known as Typhoon Rosing was a definite catastrophe to remember for the Filipino. With a 10-minute sustained windspeed of 215 km/h or 130mph, Rosing formed in October 25 and dissipated only more than a week later, November 7. Photo courtesy of Reddit Mainly affecting Metro Manila and regions of Bicol and CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon), the typhoon took almost 1000 lives in its duration. Catastrophic damage ballooned to 10.83 billion pesos. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Major power outages were recorded in several regions, affecting almost more than one-third of the country. The 10-minute sustained speed, together with its deadly 1-minute sustained speed 285 km/h or 180 mph, places Rosing in the Philippine list of typhoons to strike with the highest windspeeds. Officially, from the period of 1947 to 2014, Rosing is tenth in the deadly list. The large eyewall was heavily experienced in Naga, where it tumbled down thousands of houses and electric posts. Landslides were also triggered by the flashflood and rainfall. The strongest of Rosing continued havoc for 60 hours, unaffected and unweakened by its landfall. Typhoon Rosing, internationally Angela, is indeed a solid testament to nature's violent fury. We must always stay alert, vigilant, and protected, for its not only our physical properties at stake, but also our lives and futures as well. Sources: https://www.typhoon2000.ph/stormstats/WPF_DeadliestTyphoonsPhilippines_2015Ed.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20081016092830/http://www.typhoon2000.ph/stats/11WorstPhilippineTyphoons.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20110607011047/http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/atcr/1995atcr/pdf/wnp/29w.pdf

Despite earlier announced plans to hold the rescheduled 17th Singapore International Reinsurance Conference (SIRC) as a hybrid event, the organiser, Singapore Reinsurers’ Association (SRA) has decided to run the event in virtual format for a second year. This difficult decision was made in light of a spike in COVID-19 infections attributed to the highly transmissible Delta-variant strain not only in Singapore, where vaccination rates are well over 80%, but also elsewhere across the Asia-Pacific region. “We were very hopeful that the worst was behind us and that we would once again be able to meet up in-person with all our associates and partners from across the world,” said Mr Marc Haushofer, Chairman of the SRA. He added, “We delayed this painful decision for as long as we could but after consulting all our key partners and closely monitoring official announcements on the easing of border restrictions, it became clear that there would not be a sufficient number of overseas attendees for the hybrid event to be viable.” Notwithstanding its virtual format, the SRA is assembling an impressive line-up of speakers and panellists for the 17th SIRC 2021 virtual event, which will be held from 15 to 17 November this year. Heading the illustrious line-up is Guest-of-Honour, Mr Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s Minister for Finance and Co-chair of the Government’s COVID-19 Multi-Ministry Taskforce, who will officiate at the opening session and deliver the Official Keynote Address on Monday, 15 November at 2.00pm Singapore time. Several companies have already signed on as presenting partners to curate sessions that revolve around the theme, “Reinsurance: Quo Vadis?”. Swiss Re is the Lead Partner and will curate a number of sessions including a Fireside Chat with its CEO Reinsurance, Mr Moses Ojeisekhoba. "We are very pleased to support the SRA for the 17th SIRC. The pandemic has presented a chance for the re/insurance industry to reflect on the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead of us and to consider ways to bring about sustainable change. In that sense, the theme “Quo Vadis?” is very apt as we consider, where are we going?", said Mr Russell Higginbotham, CEO Reinsurance Asia & Regional President of Swiss Re Asia. Gold Partners – Allianz Re and Munich Re – and Silver Partners – A M Best, ICEYE and Lloyd’s – will each host one session each over the three-day conference period, with Lloyd’s Chairman, Mr Bruce Carnegie-Brown confirmed to deliver the Industry Keynote. More details of the sessions and speakers will be announced soon. The 17th SIRC event platform will comprise virtual zones created for the Conference Lobby; Help Desk; Conference Hall; Networking Lounge; Exhibition Hall; and Media Centre, where attendees can navigate seamlessly to attend keynote and panel sessions in the Conference Hall; engage in open chats with fellow attendees; explore Meeting/Exhibition spaces of partner companies or the media partners in the Media Centre. To register click here. For more details on how your company can participate in the event, please contact the SIRC Secretariat team at sirc@sg-reinsurers.org.sg

At the 4th ASEAN Insurance Summit organised by the ASEAN Insurance Council (AIC) and the Singapore College of Insurance (SCI) yesterday, overall winners of the inaugural SCI ASEAN Green Research Hackathon were announced. “SCI’s inaugural ASEAN Green Research Hackathon is designed to crowd-source good ideas and enhance our collective expertise in sustainable finance and environmental risk management. I believe future iterations will continue to catalyse deep discussion and development of innovative solutions necessary to address the growing demand for environmental sustainability. I congratulate the winners for your ideas and proposals and will like to express my deep appreciation to all participants for contributing to a successful hackathon,” said Monetary Authority of Singapore executive director, insurance department and SCI chairman Daniel Wang. The overall winner under the student category for the research category is “Team Westies” from Singapore, comprising fresh graduates on a leadership trainee programme called the Insurance Management Associate Programme (iMAP) organised by the SCI. The team consisted of Desmond Bay Zheng Tian, Nicole Ng Sok Yee, Shruthi M Durai, and Ng Yi Yang. Their research presentation “Green Investment Risks & Insurance Opportunities in ASEAN” discussed how underwriters should incorporate risk factors in their risk pricing. This also includes evaluating and recommending possible hypothetical green insurance products that focus on the risk profile of the ASEAN market while incorporating the fundamentals of different pricing models for these emerging risks. Under the open category for the research category, the overall winner was “Team Panda Warriors”, comprising Eyu Yan Wen, Chan Kwei Feng, Kan Shi Ting, and Chen Mingyang from AIG Singapore. Their research presentation “Integrating ESG in Underwriting” covered a critical analysis of the potential challenges faced by ASEAN insurers to underwrite green insurance products for personal, commercial, and specialty business lines, not to mention the ways these products will enable ASEAN to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In their submission, Panda Warriors stated that the conventional underwriting approach is inadequate for underwriting green insurance due to difficulty in forecasting overall exposure and pricing created by ambiguity in assessing future impact of climate change risks. Still, ASEAN insurers can overcome challenges by adopting digital innovation in underwriting models and active risk management such as parametric and predictive modelling. They added that ensuring the sustainability of green insurance requires a globally coordinated response from both the private and public sectors. ASEAN Insurers can facilitate the ecosystem for idea generation and establish strategic partnerships. As cited by the judging panel, these teams won the research categories as they developed a wide range of tangible ideas applicable in the ASEAN context and displayed appropriate language, referencing, and structure for their research papers. Under the open category for the technical challenge category, the overall winner was a team comprising Tan Sze Won and Lee Kin Hoe from KPMG and Nicholas Actuarial Solutions Malaysia. Their “Nature-Based Greensurtech Solution” used Excel to develop an innovative green insurance product incorporating environmental considerations in its design and execution. They created a solution for crop insurance where funds from the public, private, and government are channelled into a trust, managed by an insurance company. The funds are used to invest in nature-based solutions, which would reduce the impact of climate change and reduce losses from floods for crops. The technological element was incorporated via an Excel tool, which could be developed into an app, for each stakeholder to understand the financial and environmental impact of this nature-based “greensurtech” solution. According to the judging panel, this proposal would have the biggest climate-related impact. The proposal includes the under-represented farming society, bringing stakeholders from the government, NGOs, financial services, and the farmers in shaping a model that would support sustainability and promote a conscious climate change-related action plan. Source: asiainsurancereview.com