Monthly Archives: February 2011

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Australian Disasters: The Reinsurers Hit Hardest

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Beginning December 2010, a series of floods devastated the Australian state of Queensland, three-quarters of which was declared a disaster zone. The latest reports claim the floods killed 35, affected at least 70 towns and cost insurers more than $2 billion, with Cyclone Yasi possibly costing another $500 to $800 million, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.

Karl Sullivan, the council’s general manager of risk and disaster has said insurance companies have received 73,000 claims for the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi combined. The following is a list of the insurers most affected by Australian catastrophes (estimates):

Munich Re: The reinsurer was hit hardest with claims totaling $365 million. The company’s fourth quarter profit declined 38% due to the Australian floods plus other costly losses. Munich Re was hit in 2010 by the Chile earthquake (claims of $1 billion) and also affected by September’s earthquake in New Zealand (claims of $460 million).

Chief Financial Officer Joerg Schneider said that “despite weighty major losses, which also affected us at the end of the year, we are presenting a good result.”

Partner Re: The Pembroke, Bermuda-based company announced yesterday that they expect losses of between $80 and $100 million due to the floods and storms that hit Australia. Furthermore, it has stated that its 2010 profits have been dented due to the back-to-back natural disasters.

XL Group: The company has seen first quarter losses of $75 to $95 million related to Australian floods. The company, however, beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly operating profit, due mostly to higher premiums from its property/casualty segment.

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Hanover Re: The reinsurer, the world’s third largest, is expecting losses of $56 to $100 million from Australia’s natural disasters. The company is optimistic after negotiating better-than-expected renewal rates, however.

“For 2011 we see sufficient opportunities for selective profitable growth,” Ulrich Wallin, chief executive officer of the Hanover, Germany-based reinsurer, told reporters during a briefing at the company’s headquarters. “We shall concentrate on segments where prices are rising or where they adequately reflect the risks.”

Transatlantic Holdings: The company expects catastrophe losses to come in between $50 million and $100 million due to the Australian weather events. Like others, the company remains optimistic about future earnings growth.

“We achieved strong earnings for the quarter and year despite an elevated level of industry catastrophe loss activity. Book value per share increased 13% in the last twelve months and 43% since the end of 2008.

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Net operating cash inflows totaled .

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1 billion in 2010,” said Robert F. Orlich, President and Chief Executive Officer.

18 Insurance Companies Among the Best Companies for LGBT Employees to Work For

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In our print publication, Risk Management magazine, we have spent some time highlighting the diversity — or lack thereof — in the risk management and insurance industries. In November 2008, I wrote a cover story about the racial makeup of the insurance industry, and this month, our editor Emily Holbrook wrote a cover story on Women in Risk, providing insight of her own as well as six first-hand stories from women who have overcome the gender bias to succeed.

While I think most would agree that diversity of all types is improving not just in risk and insurance, but in most all industries, the corporate world by and large remains the domain of white, heterosexual males. Don’t get me wrong, there are obviously countless others of different backgrounds who are thriving in all sectors, but the mold of the typical power exec has not really changed since the days of Mad Men.

That’s why all signs of progress are encouraging.

And for the insurance industry, the 2011 Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is a great sign that the industry really is advancing in terms of encouraging diversity in its workforce. A full 18 companies in the industry, including power brokers Aon and Marsh & McLennan scored a perfect 100% as a Best Place to Work for their “support equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees,” according to HRC. (via PropertyCasualty360.com)

Kudos to all those on the list.

More iPhones, More Data Threats

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As the Verizon iPhone comes to market in retail stores across the nation today, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of mobile phone users will switch to iPhone 4 now that AT&T’s exclusive contract with Apple is a thing of the past. But this presents problems, lots of problems. The iPhone is not known for its steel cage-like security features, and numerous security breaches that have compromised iPhone user passwords and data have been documented. So with more and more iPhone users, the risk of personal data breaches increases.

With that in mind, here are a few suggestions of how to secure just about any Apple mobile device:

  • The first and most essential step is to enable a passcode. Always set “simple passcode” to off and create a longer, more secure passcode.
  • Set “erase data” to ON. This will automatically erase all data after 10 failed passcode attempts.
  • If you must store sensitive personal info such as credit card details, you should encrypt such info. You can download the Keeper Password and Data Vault app to do such a thing.
  • Several security firms offer apps that give you the ability to monitor virus threats on your iPhone in real-time, including Symantec, Cisco SIO To Go and Threatpost. All are free of charge.
  • For file encryption, there is Folder Lock or iDiscrete. Both enable users to transfer files to their iPhone from a PC or Mac and are designed to safeguard a wide variety of file types.
  • For those looking to monitor feeds from surveillance cameras (IP and CCTV cameras), there is the iCam Viewer, which allows the user to view up to eight feeds at once and is simple to operate.

If we need more convincing that mobile data threats are a real risk, McAfee just released their fourth quarter 2010 threat report, which revealed a steady growth of threats to mobile platforms.

“Our Q4 Threats Report shows that cybercriminals are keeping tabs on what’s popular, and what will have the biggest impact from the smallest effort,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. “In the past few quarters, malware trends have been very similar in different geographies, but in the last quarter we’ve seen a significant shift in various regions, showing that cybercriminals are tapped in to trends worldwide. McAfee Labs also sees the direct correlation between device popularity and cybercriminal activity, a trend we expect to surge in 2011.”

There will (hopefully) be an app for that.

Second Wave of Deadly Flooding Hits Sri Lanka (VIDEO)

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Sri Lanka has been underwater for weeks. By mid-January, at least 23 people had died, with another 350,000 having been displaced from their homes, and one-fifth of the nation’s rice crop had been destroyed.

Now, the island nation of 20 million is being hit with a second wave of flooding, which is displacing hundreds of thousand more and reportedly inciting landslides. The UN had already issued more than $5 million in emergency funds and will now likely increase that figure.

Reiterating its commitment to supporting humanitarian and development needs of all Sri Lankans, the United Nations, said today it will continue to assist the Sri Lankan government to meet the urgent needs for shelter, food and drinking water for over 1.2 million people affected by the second wave of floods wreaking havoc in the country .

The Associated Press has video of the ongoing disaster. (via @HlpPntAdvocate)