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Over the past decade, investors have operated a massive shift from actively managed strategies into passive ones. For insurance companies, the move towards passive has often been encouraged through their strategic asset allocation processes typically using common equity indices as a benchmark.
A common blind spot for insurers: understanding the full investment risk of your general account and your DB pension plan. See the whole picture, with help from Conning
Insurance investment today is challenging, thanks to a confluence of low yields, growing regulatory requirements and increasingly diverse balance sheets. New assets, strategies and partnerships have the potential to help insurers cut through this complexity and deliver sustainable solutions.
The impending phaseout of interest rates, Libor and Euribor, is creating major challenges for insurers. Many are turning to technology to cope with the uncertainty.
Interest rates have fallen to historic lows. Volatility within equity markets has risen. And geopolitical risk continues to be the catalyst for global market sentiment. So, how should insurers adapt their investment strategies to overcome these challenges, particularly in the face of tougher regulation?
Central banks should stop pandering to market expectations and escape the 'hall of mirrors' that this creates. That's the central theme of Expected Returns 2020-2024, our latest five-year outlook for asset classes, macroeconomic themes and other vital issues for investors.
Holding asset-backed securities has been a challenge for most insurers since the dislocations of the global financial crisis and introduction of Solvency II. This year, new regulation offers the potential for Solvency II-regulated firms to return to securitised debt investments, says James King, fund manager at M&G.
Over the next 3-5 years we see five potential disruptors; China, populism, demographics, technology, and market vulnerability.
Given the size of the global fixed income market, corporate and sovereign issuers could play an essential role in sourcing the $3-$5 trillion annually needed to meet the UN SDGs.
There is a dark cloud hanging over IBOR, the interest rate benchmark that will soon meet its demise. Insurers will need to start preparing now for doing business in an IBOR-free marketplace.
Are markets right to assume the federal funds rate has peaked? Is China the swing factor for growth? Is the trade war passé. These and other questions are answered in PIMCO’s latest outlook.
Tapping public bond markets, and embracing a broad universe of investments beyond green bonds, can help insurers deliver on their impact-investing goals.