insurance

Tokio Marine eyes Suncorp in record overseas takeover bid

Tokio Marine Holdings, the Japanese insurer that forged a strategic alliance with Berkshire Hathaway earlier this year, has identified Australia's Suncorp Group as its preferred takeover target in what would be the company's largest-ever international acquisition, according to a Financial…

Uninsured climate losses pose growing threat to Europe’s public finances

Europe's increasingly volatile weather is creating a mounting fiscal burden that governments can no longer treat as a series of isolated emergencies, with uninsured losses from wildfires and floods threatening to become a permanent strain on already stretched public budgets.

Europe’s heatwaves cost businesses billions as insurance gap widens

Europe's intensifying heatwaves stripped an estimated €43 billion ($50 billion) from economic output last summer while triggering only about €500 million in insurance payouts, according to estimates published by Moody's, exposing a vast and growing protection gap that leaves businesses…

Major insurers warn Europe’s wildfire protection gap is widening

As wildfires rage across two continents this summer, the insurance industry is sounding alarms about a widening gap between the cost of disaster recovery and the coverage available to protect homes and businesses. In Europe, where 75% of natural catastrophe…

Allianz posts record profit, calls Asia deals a ‘grand design’

Allianz is deepening its push into Southeast Asian wealth management after its investment arm agreed to acquire UOB United Overseas Bank Limited Asset Management for S$555 million (US$433 million), the second major Singapore deal announced by the German insurer in…

Prudential shares plunge as China taxes offshore insurance returns

Shares in Prudential plunged as much as 13% on Wednesday after a report that Chinese mainland tax authorities have begun levying personal income tax on returns from offshore insurance policies, rattling investors in Asia-focused financial stocks and dragging down HSBC…

Europe’s wildfires could cost France up to $17B, exposing climate insurance gap

Europe's worst wildfire season in recent history is forcing a reckoning across the insurance industry, as record-breaking blazes in France, Spain, and Greece widen the gap between climate-driven losses and available coverage. The crisis is reverberating beyond Europe, with similar…

Kumamoto quake insured losses may reach $2.1B, Verisk says

Verisk Analytics estimated that insured losses from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture on July 28 will range between JPY 220 billion (approximately $1.4 billion) and JPY 340 billion (approximately $2.1 billion), the company's Catastrophe and Risk…

EU regulators push for disaster insurance pool as wildfires rage across Europe

As wildfires this week threatened the outskirts of Bordeaux and Madrid — forcing more than 300,000 people from their homes and burning over 160,000 hectares across France and Spain — European financial regulators are pressing Brussels to act on a…

Economists warn Europe’s wildfires and heatwaves are becoming a macroeconomic threat

Europe is facing its third heatwave in six weeks as wildfires rage across France, Spain and Greece, prompting economists and insurers to warn that extreme summer weather is evolving from a seasonal nuisance into a structural macroeconomic threat.

Moody’s warns Europe’s record wildfires put insurance market on new trajectory

Within a single week in July, France suffered its most devastating wildfire outbreak in at least half a century and Spain recorded the largest wildfire in its modern history, prompting warnings from Moody's and Swiss Re that the European insurance…

HSBC sells Singapore insurance unit to Allianz for $2.1 billion

HSBC Holdings has agreed to sell its Singapore life and health insurance business to Allianz for S$2.7 billion (approximately $2.1 billion), the bank announced on Wednesday, capping a months-long strategic review and bidding process for the unit.

Allianz Partners to cut up to 1,800 jobs as AI replaces call center roles

Allianz Partners will eliminate between 1,500 and 1,800 positions across Europe as the travel insurance subsidiary accelerates its adoption of artificial intelligence, CEO Tomas Kunzmann confirmed at an event in Munich on Tuesday evening.

Allianz warns climate change is making more assets uninsurable

As a deadly heat wave claims more than 1,300 lives across Europe, one of the world's largest insurers is warning that climate change is making a growing number of assets impossible to cover.

Insurers slash war premiums for Strait of Hormuz ships

Insurers have cut war-risk premiums for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz by more than half, as oil flows through the critical waterway return to levels not seen since before the U.S.-Iran conflict began in February, according to a report…