Around the P&C insurance industry: April 24, 2024
Insurance industry news from MassMutual, Swiss Re, MS Amlin and more featured in weekly update.
GeoVera Insurance Holdings, Ltd. has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its insurance carriers and managing general agent businesses. Upon completion of the transactions, a newly formed entity, GeoVera Nova Holdings, Inc., will control four insurance operating subsidiaries: GeoVera Insurance Company, GeoVera Specialty Insurance Company, Coastal Select Insurance Company, and SafePort Insurance Company, a property-focused insurance carrier. Additionally, the MGA operations of GeoVera will be acquired by SageSure, one of the largest independent MGAs focused on catastrophe-exposed markets, and GeoVera Nova will become a carrier partner of SageSure.
MassMutual offered their clients property and casualty insurance, both personal and commercial lines, available through Insurify, America’s top-rated insurance comparison platform. This is one of the latest additions to MassMutual’s suite of wealth management and protection solutions.
Core Brokers Insurance Services launched, signaling a fresh direction for business insurance tailored to the needs of middle-market companies in the Western Region. This new venture comes as the founding team, comprised of seasoned insurance professionals, makes a bold move away from their previous firm. The founding team includes Corey Kroviak, Jim Rose, Chris Trudeau and John Von Der Ahe. Their departure is not just a transition but a statement of intent to redefine what businesses can expect from their insurance providers.
Guard partnered with SentinelOne, the leader in AI-powered security. The partnership includes an investment from S Ventures, SentinelOne’s venture fund. Guardz and SentinelOne collaborated on technological advancements and go-to-market strategies, together empowering Managed Service Providers to better serve their small and medium-sized business clients in the face of rising and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
Munich Re Specialty Insurance launched a FAIR Plan Commercial Wrap, available to commercial insureds in California who seek comprehensive coverage in tandem with their FAIR Plan coverage. MRSI’s FAIR Plan Commercial Wrap is designed to enable insureds to more fully protect their business properties against property damage than just the FAIR Plan alone.
Mulberri partnered with Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, to embed Mulberri’s cyber insurance to Acronis small and medium-sized businesses customers based in the US. Through this partnership, Acronis customers can opt-in for Mulberri’s embedded cyber insurance directly through the Acronis platform. This seamless embedded approach will streamline cyber insurance access to Acronis customers in minutes. Acronis natively integrates cybersecurity, data protection and endpoint management for managed service providers and small and medium businesses (SMBs); however, added cyber insurance inserts a layer of protection.
DARAG Insurance Guernsey Limited acquired a Cayman Island based insurance captive. The SPA is subject to regulatory approval from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority and continues DARAG’s strong track record in executing captive transactions. DIGL intends to merge with the acquired captive in due course and reinsure the longer tail portion of the portfolio to its core risk carrier in Germany, DARAG Deutschland AG.
Cytora and DynaRisk partnered to use DynaRisk’s suite of cyber risk assessment data on the Cytora platform. Therefore, underwriters can immediately take into account a number of data points regarding cyber risk when devising insurance quotes. This results in more comprehensive risk evaluation and better decision making.
MNK Group has purchased Oceánica de Seguros S.A., an insurer based in San José, Costa Rica. The purchase allowed the MNK Group to strengthen and expand its insurance and reinsurance businesses in Central America and the LatAm region.
Swiss Re launched an augmented version of its life and health underwriting manual, Life Guide. The new version comes equipped with Swiss Re Life Guide Scout, a Generative AI-powered underwriting assistant, developed by Swiss Re, that integrates Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Swiss Re Life Guide Scout aims to help increase the efficiency and quality of underwriting by generating swift answers compiled from curated expert knowledge in response to questions asked by the underwriter in natural language.
Brent Marston, president and COO, launched First US Warranty, providing customized finance and insurance programs, administration and training to the automotive industry nationwide. First US Warranty’s program offerings include vehicle service contracts, limited warranties, gap insurance, pre-paid maintenance, tire and wheel protection, appearance protection, dent and ding protection, key replacement, windshield protection, bundle programs, excess wear and tear, theft deterrents, and virtual finance and insurance offering.
Liberty Mutual Reinsurance partnered with Safehub, a technology provider in seismic sensor and risk management solutions to offer a market-first, building-specific, sensor-based, parametric earthquake (re)insurance product to clients globally. Safehub’s seismic sensor technology captures building-specific real-time data at the policyholder’s building location(s) to trigger parametric (re)insurance policies. The policies are bespoke, offering coverage for specific earthquake event triggers.
Allianz’s personal lines business has reported a 29% increase in fraud prevention in 2023 compared to the previous year. This spans across all types of insurance fraud from motor claims, home claims and application fraud, and the notable rise of ghost brokers and their tactics to lure innocent victims into a fake insurance policy.
MS Amlin partnered with leading global catastrophe risk modelling and solutions company, Moody’s RMS, as it invests in a whole new suite of modelling and insight solutions. This investment in the cloud-native Moody’s RMS Intelligent Risk Platform will rapidly inject new data and functionality to support its analysts as they provide vital insight to front line underwriters, as well as capital and pricing teams. The new functionality will also deliver more accurate and detailed information to guide business planning, risk and solvency assumptions and decisions around the firm’s own internal capital model.
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