Swiss Re sees growing collaboration opportunities with insurers
Swiss Re sees growing opportunities to collaborate with primary insurers in the development of innovative products, growing its know-how and potentially gaining new business.
The opportunity to develop new products is driven by pressure to reduce costs in the insurance space but also by technological innovation, said Eric Schuh, Swiss Re global head of P&C solutions.
As a result of the development of a new product, Swiss Re may benefit from the consequential reinsurance cover need from the insurer, but the projects are seen as part of the reinsurer’s client relationship strategy and its aim to grow its know-how.
“It is similar to what we have been seeing for several years in the life market, where reinsurers and insurers develop products and models and target new markets together while sharing the resulting business,” Schuh said.
“In the P&C market this has not been so much the case, but it is now becoming more popular,” he added.
The development of new products is also driven by a soft market where insurers are looking for opportunities to grow.
Swiss Re has created a unit for P&C solutions to develop this area, also following client requests for collaboration.
The trend towards innovative solutions in the P&C space has gained traction in the motor business first, with the introduction of telematics. But the potential of new applications is growing fast.
It ranges from statistical analysis and text-mining solutions to gain insight into risks, to developing parametric solutions for real-time reporting or automatic risk placement for applications providing facultative reinsurance cover in real time.
A recent example is Swiss Re’s partnership with Chubb to underwrite a new insurance cover for airline travellers. The new offering will cover the additional costs and inconvenience travellers face due to flight cancellations and delays.
The claims will be validated in real time using data from FlightStats, a provider of real-time global flight data to consumers and the travel industry, and paid directly into the customer’s PayPal or bank account, or credited to their debit or credit card, within an hour, or at the latest within 72 hours of arriving at their destination, the company claims.
“Today it is possible to address risks in a more detailed and agile way,” Schuh concluded.
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