Analysis

• The pros and cons of managing insurers' assets in-house

  17 October 2014

  External management of an insurer's assets may give the company more flexibility, but does it necessarily produce good results? Sarfraz Thind investigates

• Buy-and-maintain strategies attract insurers' interest

  14 October 2014

  Some insurers are looking at buy-and-maintain strategies because of claims that they can increase yield without taking on too much credit risk and reduce transaction costs. Hardeep Dhillon looks at the arguments

• Making fixed income investments work harder

  08 October 2014

  Insurers need to consider introducing alternative, actively managed forms of fixed income to improve portfolio returns, argues Euan MacLaren

• Insurers plan bigger allocations to real estate and infrastructure

  06 October 2014

  These are the two leading asset classes favoured by insurers as a BlackRock survey shows one in three firms plans to increase their risk appetite over the next three years

• Asset data reporting deadlines for Solvency II need addressing now

  02 October 2014

  Even though full implementation of Solvency II on 1 January 2016 may seem distant, insurers need to confront the challenges of regulatory reporting of asset data now and formalise procedures, as there is no time to be wasted. Chris Johnson, senior product manager, market data services, HSBC Securities Services explains

• Insurers model default risk to maximise MA benefit

  30 September 2014

  Towers Watson survey shows industry split over asset eligibility

• Completion mandates are AllianceBernstein's forte

  26 September 2014

  The approach enables insurers to access asset classes where they don't have the resources to research and manage them in-house, the firm's insurance CIO Erik Vynckier explains to Hardeep Dhillon

• The dangers of overlooking inflation risk

  24 September 2014

  Pimco's Eugene Dimitriou and Berdibek Ahmedov outline the difficulties in quantifying inflation risk

• BlackRock and DeAWM continue to dominate insurance outsourcing

  18 September 2014

  Goldman, JPMorgan also notched up big gains in the new Insurance Investment Outsourcing Report rankings

• Latest ABS capital charge reduction still not enough to encourage insurer investment

  17 September 2014

  Market participants say the EC's new Solvency II proposals do not address the key issues