Reinsurers’ Financial Communication: 2019-2020 benchmark study

For the second consecutive year, Mazars’ two-fold benchmark study on Reinsurers’ Financial Communication gives the ability to compare key market performance indicators.

This first part of the study, published in September 2019 focuses on the analysis of intangible assets and deferred acquisition costs, provides an overview on the tax environment and deferred taxes, and gives insight on the performance measurements indicators.

Part 2 focuses on the risk universe of selected companies based on the annual reports published for the year-end 2018. First, we address risk management disclosures and solvency II metrics. We then provide an overview of company-sponsored Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) such as CAT/Mortality bonds.

The second part of this benchmark is published in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. This crisis will most likely have a major impact on the reinsurance market hence on the 2020 financial statements, the Solvency ratios and the modelling of pandemic risks. We will definitely address this topic in our future publications.

By analysing reinsurers’ financial communication, we hope to shed light on the transparency of disclosures and provide relevant comparisons.

The panel of reinsurers

In line with the benchmark study published last year, we have focused our attention on several companies whose core business is reinsurance. The companies targeted were selected based on the top 15 reinsurers in the world (based on gross written premiums), from which we excluded one Asian and one Indian company (Korean Re and the General Insurance Corporation of India) and two holding companies (Great West Lifeco and Transatlantic Holdings) due to comparability issues. Compared to last year, we excluded XL + Catlin due to its absorption by AXA and we included in the panel China Re. It should also be mentioned that some reinsurers have also direct insurance business, like Munich Re (via ERGO Group), which were not excluded from this study as we present consolidated group figures.

From a pure information perspective, we have also included AXA and Allianz, later called “selected insurers”, as we considered this information would allow a better understanding of the way reinsurers compare to regular insurers.