In the context of the continued low yield environment, Tom Rogers, the managing director and head of Strategy Implementation, Investment Management, and Robert Torretti, managing director, regional investment manager—Americas, Zurich Insurance Group discuss the future for insurance investment management.
How has Zurich Insurance Group’s investment strategy, and your attitude to risk, evolved over the past few years?
Tom Rogers: The short answer to whether it has really changed pre and post the financial crisis is no. We have always begun with our insurance liabilities, developing our investment strategies so that approach remains constant through time. I don’t want to say we are very conservative but we are very risk-aware in our analysis and in our development of that investment strategy. The overall asset allocation on a strategic basis has evolved slightly over time but not materially over that five year period.
In 2003–2004 Zurich did go through its own little financial crisis when the markets were not in general crisis. In that time period we really developed the framework, that thought process, that approach of let’s focus on the risk management vis-à-vis our liabilities in order to make sure that we have the right asset allocation approach. That again has remained constant, we’ve been constantly trying to improve our approach and to do a better job of analysing and measuring the risk and managing that as well, but materially nothing has changed in the intervening five years.
Tom Rogers, Robert Torretti, Zurich Insurance Group, Intelligent Insurer, Insurance
