Post-Part XIII, branches write $70 million in out-of-Canada gross premium in 2010 Q1.

Total gross written premium of out-of-Canada business written by branches in Canada amounted to almost $70 million in 2010 Q1 (annualized roughly to $280 million), according to the MSA/Baron Outlook Report Q1-2010.This is the first financial quarter in which the effects of the changes to Part XIII of the Federal Insurance Companies Act are incorporated into the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institution (OSFI) data. The out-of-Canada written premium of branches did not appear in OSFI data prior to the Part XIII changes, although expenses did.Based on 2010 Q1 data, Swiss Re was the largest federally regulated, out-of-Canada P&C insurance writer, with about 50% of the total gross premium written (GPW). Zurich ranked next at $22.9 million, followed by FM Global at $10.5 million.”The more difficult measure is to see how much previously recorded in-Canada business leaked out and is no longer counted in Canadian filings,” MSA Research president and CEO Joel Baker wrote in the MSA/Baron Report Q1-2010. “Oddly enough, based on the new (location of risk) provincial split pages required by the AMF and the limited number of branches that were required to fill them out, it appears that there was no leakage in Q1.”That is, almost all of the differences between location-of-risk and location-of-contract were accounted for in the aforementioned newly revealed out-of-Canada branch business (overall increase in reported premiums rather than a decrease).”