The world upside down

At the end of January 2017, the prospects of the insurance sector looming ahead during this year are not reassuring. The industry is indeed up against a series of events that raise concerns and worries. Combined together, these uncertainties are weighing on a market that is already losing bearings. The entire system is no longer contested by secondary players but by those who created and imposed it worldwide.

[1]

With the new American administration coming to power and the rejection of the economic order advocated by the latter, controversies around the notions of globalization and liberalism can only be reignited. These two words, until recently inseparable, are now turning into contrary concepts. Advocates of liberalism are no longer keen on maintaining the current system as Brexit emerges as the symbol of this ideological shift.

Economic nationalism, along with its dose of protectionist guidelines, can only be detrimental to the principle of pooling of risks at the global level. London, for so long the global center of insurance, is getting isolated. The migration of European and Asian insurers and reinsurers toward replacement areas such as Munich, Dublin, Luxemburg or Paris has disrupted the liberal plans drawn up in recent decades.

By the same token, the “America First” slogan may cost Bermuda very dearly as the relocation of American reinsurers and pension funds gets more worrisome.

Everything has come under serious questioning. As a sign of time, in January 2017, the President of the People’s Republic of China, traveling to Davos, was praising the benefits of liberalism while on the other side of the Atlantic, American president was signing decree after decree, isolating his country further and further. Things are just going the other way around.

The world upside down

Atlas Magazine N°138, February 2017 [1]