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IAR Survey: Active versus passive, where do insurers stand?
23 December 2020As passive strategies have risen in popularity over the years, active managers have argued that their value would be apparent in times of crisis - if COVID-19 was the perfect scenario, have they delivered? And where do insurers and their "long time horizon" investing fit in the debate? Vincent Huck reports
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To have and to hold, in good times and in bad... until debt do us apart
21 December 2020When markets are bumpy, insurers need govvies in their investment portfolios, but for much more it has only shortcomings. David Walker examines European underwriters' varied views on sovereigns
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Sunlife CIO on the art of catching flying daggers
16 December 2020COVID-19 was the 'known unknown' that Randy Brown, CIO at SunLife, has been preparing for the best part of the last five years. So, when markets went into turmoil in H1 2020 the only question that remained was one of timing: when to catch the falling knife? Interview by Vincent Huck
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US insurers timidly assessing climate risk
14 December 2020From increasingly fierce wildfires in California to recurring hurricane hits to the country's southern and eastern seaboards, US insurers are only too familiar with some intensifying effects of climate change, but are they doing anything about it? David Walker takes the temperature.
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Western & Southern: The equity pusher
09 December 2020The idea that insurers can only invest in fixed income is a myth for Cincinnati's Western & Southern CIO, Brendan White. The insurer has been stretching the mould by investing in equities for nigh on 30 years. White explains why it invests in stocks and how successful this has been in the torpid world of insurance investing. Interview by Sarfraz Thind
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Times when investment yield boosted fortunes are gone
07 December 2020S&P Global Ratings warned non-life firms to get their underwriting in order, David Walker reports
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CIO Interview: Macroeconomics is doomed, but investment opportunities still abound
02 December 2020Mapfre's group chief investment officer José Luis Jiménez reflects on the current economic crisis and points out pockets of opportunity for his team to explore. Interview by Vincent Huck
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Climate lawyer urges CIOs to pressure sovereigns on climate
30 November 2020Australian government faces spotlight - and the dock - over poor bond disclosure. David Barnden, the lawyer who is taking the class action suit to the court, talks to David Walker about the case, and why institutional investors might want to join retail ones in litigating
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Use of stress tests: careful not to address the fire that just happened
25 November 2020Ash Belur, a director at Willis Towers Watson's insurance investment team, discusses insurers' usage of stress tests in their investment portfolios and how 2020 might have thrown many of the scenario assumptions out of the window. Interview by Vincent Huck
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Comment : ESG investing in credit without compromise
23 November 2020Andrew Epsom, insurance client solutions director at Royal London Asset Management, considers the continuing trend towards ESG investing in credit, but highlights that in many cases the approaches being adopted may not result in either the environmental or financial outcomes that insurers are seeking.
- CIO Interview: managing Europe's third largest general account
- Conning CEO on Generali's acquisition and AI in asset management
- Private credit beats PE for insurers' appetite for the first time in GSAM survey
- On the merry-go-round of asset classes, with Generali Group's CIO Francesco Martorana
- News roundup: Insurance asset management
- Private debt at the forefront of insurers' continued advance into private markets
- Infrastructure is still a good investment for insurers looking for stability, but beware of nuanced risks
- Insurers not holding managers to account on responsible investing, ShareAction finds
- Non-PE backed insurers feel pressure to compete with PE-backed firms
- Comment - What CIOs could learn from Japanese insurers - and Dolly Parton