Three in four insurance executives surveyed plan to use “traditional reinsurance” as capital source

Insurance and reinsurance executives included in a recent survey were more likely this year than in 2012 to say they would spend more money on information technology if they could while they were likely less likely to identify catastrophe/non-catastrophe losses and global economic uncertainty as the biggest threat to their plans for growth.

New York City-based Guy Carpenter recently announced the results of its second annual poll of insurance and reinsurance executives from the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) annual meeting. The 2013 meeting was held Oct. 20-23 in Boston.

“Innovation and improvements to technology continue to remain a top priority for (re)insurance professionals,” Guy Carpenter stated in a press release Oct 31. “More than one-third (39%) of respondents said that if given a blank check to invest in their firm, they would spend the additional resources on bolstering IT, up from 35% in 2012.”

Respondents this year were “less likely to identify catastrophe/non-catastrophe losses (18% vs. 22% respectively) and global economic uncertainty (12% vs. 19% respectively) as the biggest threat to their plans for growth as compared with the 2012 survey.”

Guy Carpenter, the risk and reinsurance intermediary services subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, conducted a survey of 155 insurance and reinsurance professionals at the 2013 PCI Annual Meeting. During the 2012 meeting, Guy Carpenter polled 100 professionals.

The survey was intended “to identify the key drivers and threats to profitable growth” in the insurance industry.

“Nearly three out of four respondents (73%) commented that they would be leveraging traditional reinsurance vehicles as a capital source in 2014,” according to the survey results.

“This year’s respondents said they were more likely to report utilizing capital markets solutions (18% vs. 16% respectively) — a continuing demonstration of the increase in prevalence and appetite for alternative capital sources and vehicles in the market.”