Pandemic influences future insurance losses
A new report from Allianz finds that the coronavirus is changing claims trends and affecting risk exposures.
The coronavirus continues to have a widespread effect on every aspect of life, and the insurance industry has not been immune to its impact. A new report from Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), “COVID-19 – Changing Claims Patterns,” looks at both the short-term and long-term results of the pandemic.
“I’ve been in the insurance industry for 25 years,” shared Philipp Cremer, global head of claims for Allianz, “…and we have not seen anything at the scale of the virus in the recent past.” He said that the industry has addressed losses from 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, and catastrophe events in Asia where first-party losses developed very quickly. “If we look at the long-tail events, asbestos events would in totality be a bigger challenge for the industry than the pandemic.”
The damage estimates are still coming in, but according to Lloyd’s, the insurance industry can expect to pay somewhere in the area of $110 billion in 2020 for pandemic-related claims. AGCS has reserved approximately $571 million for claims primarily related to the entertainment industry for canceled events and disrupted film and movie productions.
“By the number of claims, this hasn’t been an outlier,” Cremer told PropertyCasualty360.com. “It was a big event, but it’s something that we are well prepared to handle. Take a large CAT event where we get a similar number of claims in a short period of time. The challenge was the shutdown of all of the offices. Working remotely was something we had never rehearsed before, and we are proud that this went very smoothly. There wasn’t a day of IT downtime or interruption.”
Cremer explained that there was a fair amount of uncertainty among their insureds about how their policies and the company would respond to the pandemic. “There were a large number of precautionary claims notifications from policyholders who wanted to make sure that in any event, the policy would respond. We received a lot of blanket notifications across multiple products.” AGCS used the opportunity to explain in-depth how the policies would respond, particularly those related to property damage. “That communication was important,” added Cremer.
The company saw claims surge in lines such as entertainment, while traditional property lines dropped due to the periods of lockdown. “There is still the potential for claims to occur as factories and businesses restart after periods of hibernation, and given the longer development patterns for third-party claims in casualty lines,” said Cremer in a press release.
ACGS has received thousands of COVID-19 claims, and each one was evaluated on its own merits. If the coverage was clear, the company paid the claims. Any coverage questions under business interruption policies were clarified and explained to brokers and policyholders.
Among the risks to watch are the increased cyber risks since remote workers make companies more vulnerable, as well as global supply chains. Many companies are reviewing their supply chain options and looking for more redundancies to protect their product access.
The outbreak of the pandemic has also encouraged insurers to review their policy wording. Cremer said this type of review is routine and happens all of the time. “Several times a year, we from the claims function give feedback to our underwriting team on how the policies operate to see where there are uncertainties or ambiguities that need to be addressed. If the courts come out with an interpretation of a policy that goes against our understanding, that would trigger a wording review. There will be different responses for different product lines.”
Cremer strongly believes that the coronavirus has allowed insurers to contribute to the solutions needed to address an event like a pandemic. “Working with government, pooling solutions, public money, and reinsurance solutions is where we can now help with infrastructure and servicing.”
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