Articles by Noor Zainab Hussain and Carolyn Cohn

Bezos’ 2021 Space Odyssey Is a Risk Too Far for Insurers

Launching one of the richest individuals on earth into orbit has proved a leap too far for insurers, who are not ready to price the risk of losing Jeff Bezos or his fellow space travelers. Amazon CEO Bezos, a lifelong …

Extreme Weather, Repair Woes to Push Property Insurance Higher: Hippo CEO

Extreme weather events and shortage of labor and materials for repairs will push property insurance rates higher in the next several years, the chief executive of U.S. home insurer Hippo said on Tuesday. As homeowners stayed home during the pandemic, …

UK Financial Services Sector Cautions About Legislating Work-from-Home Options

LONDON – How people divide their working hours between home and office should develop naturally over time and not be forced into law, senior financial services industry officials said on Monday. Britain has indicated it may legislate to allow people …

Major Reinsurers Look to Exclude Coal from Treaty Policies, as Climate Pressure Grows

Major reinsurers have already pulled back from providing bespoke cover for coal projects as part of efforts to meet global climate change commitments, but now comes the hard part – finding ways to exclude coal from bulk-buy contracts, known as …

Zurich Insurance Expects Limited Exposure to Greensill Collapse

Zurich Insurance does not expect to have a major exposure to the failure of supply chain financing firm Greensill Capital, the insurer’s chief financial officer said on Wednesday after it reported solid first-quarter earnings. Greensill Capital lent money to firms …

Insurers Seek to Find Ways to Make Pandemics Insurable

LONDON – When much of the global economy locked down last year, insurers, facing estimated losses of more than $100 billion globally, reached straight for their red pens to strike pandemic cover from all new business policies. Denis Kessler, chairman …

Insurers Prefer Private Equity Investments over Hedge Funds: Survey

LONDON — Insurers want to put more money into private equity this year while scaling back on hedge funds, a survey by Goldman Sachs Asset Management showed on Wednesday. Private equity was the most-favored asset class for insurers seeking to …

Goldman Survey: Insurers Favoring Private Equity Over Hedge Funds

Insurers want to put more money into private equity this year while scaling back on hedge funds, a survey by Goldman Sachs Asset Management showed on Wednesday. Private equity was the most-favored asset class for insurers seeking to increase investment …

Many Climate Scientists Moving from Fieldwork to Jobs in Financial Services

LONDON – Environmental scientist Laura Garcia Velez cut her teeth on projects to help Ethiopian farmers insure crops for drought and connect remote Colombian communities to the electricity grid before working for conservation campaigners WWF. Now she’s an analyst for …

Reinsurers Will Bear Most of Costs of Container-Ship Grounding in Suez Canal

LONDON — Reinsurers are set to foot most of the bill for the grounding of the ship that halted traffic in the Suez Canal, industry sources said, with payouts expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars. International supply …