Analysis

  • Curious and curiouser - the quirky and weird risks, that Lloyd's syndicate CIOs are backing

    15 May 2024

    Got a satellite, a nuclear reactor, a Degas, or a body part to insure? A Lloyd's syndicate will do that - and back the risk in its GA. David Walker peers inside Lloyd's cabinet of insured curiosities

  • From khaki to green: How are insurer's approaching investing in newer renewables technologies?

    13 May 2024

    From biogas to battery storage to hydrogen, new technologies in the renewables sector are plentiful, but when is the right time to invest?

  • Core competency - Lloyd's syndicates go outsourcing, and not just for peripheral assets

    08 May 2024

    Lloyd's syndicates hire external help for the core of their general accounts, even if delegating makes more headlines when non-mainstream assets are involved

  • Blending art and science to build investment risk frameworks at Enstar

    06 May 2024

    Roman Halfin, investment risk officer at Enstar, explains why non-economic risks have overtaken economic ones in 2024 and how he contributes to the US insurer's investment decisions process

  • CIOs act further on climate investing in 2023, as Nat Cats give underwriters a 'breather'

    02 May 2024

    In severe 'Nat Cat years' before 2023, CIOs at Lloyd's acted as 'cash registers', disgorging cash to meet steep property claims. Last year, a 'break in the weather' let them 'take stock', and many seized that 'down-time' to progress climate-investing with managers and funds

  • Making sense of social impact metrics for investment decisions

    01 May 2024

    Can investors create a single, comparable social impact metric for their investments - and does it even make sense to try?

  • CIO Interview: From politics to sustainability, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

    29 April 2024

    In the second part of Insurance Asset Risk's interview with José Luis Jiménez, Mapfre's CIO talks about the difficulties around defining sustainability, and the thorny issue of managing political and geographical risk in an era that has proven to be irrepressibly unpredictable.

  • The other 'hiking' - Lloyd's syndicate CIOs trek further 'off the beaten path' for alternatives

    25 April 2024

    Yields on core fixed income may have improved with rate hikes of recent years, but some Lloyd's syndicate CIOs have ventured further from the well-trod path, searching for alternatives, as David Walker discovers

  • CIO Interview: I don't believe in a soft landing, Mapfre CIO José Luis Jiménez says

    22 April 2024

    "I've always thought it's a shame that Madrid doesn't have a beach," is just one of several sweeping observations that Insurance Asset Risk makes while waiting to sit down (virtually) with José Luis Jiménez, Mapfre's long-standing CIO.

  • "Bonds are back" - Goldilocks appears for Lloyd's syndicates' fixed income holdings

    18 April 2024

    Not a big bad bear was in sight when syndicates published annual reports in March, but many warned of elevated geopolitical instability risks