Analysis

• HDI Global CIO faces inflation hedge conundrum

  07 June 2023

  Thorsten Wölbern, CIO of HDI Global, the business insurance company of the Talanx Group, explains why inflation is top of his mind, why rates will go down again, and discusses the 'exotic' unexplored investment shores. Interview by Vincent Huck

  

• Comment - Do inflation-linked bonds cover the rate of 'claims inflation' in kidnapping ransoms?

  05 June 2023

  The clouded world of insurance for the costs of ending kidnaps raises some intriguing questions

  

• The (very) fine art of triangulating investment risk, reward and Solvency II capital

  31 May 2023

  Europe's CIOs are being challenged as never before to get investment and regulatory trade-offs right in portfolios. David Walker finds a tool built to help

  

• Equities exposures - feast, then famine, for Europe's CIOs

  29 May 2023

  Whether they love them or hate them, Europe's CIOs hold shares, directly and in funds they came to about one-fifth of their GAs in Q3 2023. Appreciating or reviling the exposure may rather depend on the year, David Walker reports

  

• Italian CIOs welcome BTP yields rising - but maybe not their "exploding" - in 2022

  24 May 2023

  While European CIOs welcomed debt yields heating up again in 2022, for Italians BTPs underwent a truly combustible expansion, David Walker finds

  

• The US battles against ESG

  22 May 2023

  US climate change politics have hit a turning point. What started off as mild disgruntlement against woke investing now looks to have turned into an all-out war by right-leaning states against climate siders. It is enough to make the head spin. Sarfraz Thind reports

  

• US debt ceiling drama strikes again

  18 May 2023

  Grubby politics are again featuring as the spoiler for financial market equilibrium. The US debt ceiling standoff seems to be an annual affair—but this one looks a lot more serious than those in the past. Sarfraz Thind reports

  

• Benelux insurers' investment capital bills gyrate, in time with markets, in 2022

  18 May 2023

  Some insurers faced triple-digit hikes in interest rates SCRs as equities and spread risks dramatically gave way, David Walker reports

  

• CNP Assurances' philosophy of 'investing meaningfully'

  17 May 2023

  In the third and final part of this series, chief investment officer Olivier Guigné discusses the French insurer's approach to sustainability investing and why biodiversity needs to become an economic necessity. Interview by Vincent Huck

  

• Northern exposure - equities bestow mixed blessings on Nordic/Scandinavian insurers in 2022

  15 May 2023

  Markets may have dived as rates, geopolitical tension and inflation rocketed, but Scandinavian and Nordic insurers' faith in equities was not always misplaced. David Walker reports