U.S. Insurers Reinsure 29% of New Individual Life Risk: Munich Re
Munich Re says Canadian insurers reinsured 67% of their new recurring individual life business.
One of the main financial engines inside U.S. individual life insurance production held pretty steady in 2018, according to data from Munich American Reassurance Company.
Munich American Re, an Atlanta-based arm of Munich Re, says life insurers ceded 29% of the $1.7 billion in new U.S. individual life insurance benefits they sold in 2018.
(Related: Life Re Giants Crowd Out Other Players: Moody’s)
Insurers also ceded about 29% of the $1.7 billion in new U.S. individual life coverage they sold in 2017, according to the Munich American Re data.
Life insurers use reinsurance, or insurance for insurers, to protect themselves against the possibility that natural disasters, contagious diseases or other factors could send the number of covered death claims soaring, and to reduce the amount of capital needed to support the business they have written.
Anthony Ferraro, an actuary at Munich Re, prepared the report for the Society of Actuaries Reinsurance Section. He based the survey report on a reinsurer survey.
For the life reinsurers themselves, the amount of new, recurring U.S. individual life benefits reinsured increased to $506 billion in 2018, up 1.7% from the 2017 total.
The amount of new, recurring U.S. group life in-force premiums reinsured increased 6%, to $821 million.
Resources
Links to Munich Re life reinsurance surveys are available here.
— Read Reinsurance Levels Slumped In 2007, Survey Finds, on ThinkAdvisor.
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