IGI positive after ratings upgrade to ‘A’

The reinsurance market has entered a more promising era of hardening rates, but has still has a long way to go before progressing into a true hard market, according to IGI.

Talking to Monte Carlo Today, Waleed Jabsheh, president of IGI and executive director of IGI UK, and Andreas Loucaides, chief executive officer of IGI UK, said the market has changed since last year, with reasonable increases in some lines in some localities.

“We are relieved to see the market finally turning after being a soft market for so long,” said Jabsheh.

“The events of 2017/18 were abysmal for the market, especially for London and Lloyd’s. It has come to a point where everyone finally realised that the pricing just couldn’t continue.”

Jabsheh said that for the past 12 months IGI has been seeing a reasonable turn in the market that has allowed the company to grow and develop in certain classes of business.
Classes that suffered the most were the lines of business that had seen the most hardening.

“We have 17 different classes and we’re seeing rate increases across the board, except for one, which is terrorism/political violence,” said Jabsheh.

“That is because it’s a market where people are continuing to make very healthy returns—the appetite for it is still there.”

The company recorded a net profit of $13.7 million for the first half of 2019, up on the $11 million it reported for the first half of 2018. Its gross written premiums increased to $186.12 million in the first half of 2019, compared with $165.8 million in the same period a year earlier.

IGI’s good performance was one of the reasons rating agency AM Best upgraded its financial strength and credit rating to ‘A’ from ‘A-’ on September 6.

Jabsheh and Loucaides stressed that the company was watching the Brexit situation carefully and had put plans in place to deal with any eventuality.