Lloyd’s estimates that the global insurance industry will experience losses of up to $ 203 billion in the wake of the corona pandemic. The insurance industry is affected twice by the virus outbreak: on the one hand, the damage is accumulating, on the other hand, the financial markets are falling.
“I don’t think anyone in our industry has ever seen both happen at once,” London insurance market chief John Neal told Reuters on Thursday. Industry-wide losses are expected to total $ 107 billion – a similar amount to the 2005 and 2017 hurricane series. Lloyd’s estimates that there would be an investment loss of $ 96 billion.
The London insurance market itself expects to pay out $ 3.0 to 4.3 billion, as Neal said. The corona crisis has turned everyday life at Lloyd’s of London upside down. The huge “Underwriting Floor”, on which thousands of brokers negotiate insurance contracts and pass on risks every day, has been closed since mid-March – for the first time in Lloyd’s’ 333-year history. Neal said he did not expect to be able to reopen the trading room before August. Some of Lloyd’s own employees can return to the premises in June.
The majority of the expected damage in the wake of the corona crisis comes from the cancellation of major events such as the Olympic Games, business interruption policies and commercial credit insurance that protects suppliers against the loss of payments from their customers. Life insurance is not included in Lloyd’s estimates.
Source: Apa / Ag.
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