Welcome to iLeads Insurance Market Minute, where we bring you the latest, most relevant news regarding the insurance market. Last week you were reading Large Insurers Embrace Digital Exchanges, Selling Their Own and Other Policies. This week we’re bringing you:
Cryotherapy insurance: Managing risks for a new and experimental treatment*
Cryotherapy, also known as cold therapy, has only become a more widely embraced wellness practice in the United States in the last decade. It is used primarily in sports medicine and physical therapy to assist with pain relief, muscle healing, and reducing inflammation, but it has also been used to treat chronic pain and has been touted for everything from facials to weight loss and cellulite trimming.
It is a growing industry in the United States, with almost 3,000 cryotherapy centers nationwide, but the insurance options for businesses that offer cryotherapy remain extremely limited. In fact, most insurance markets are taking a stand-off approach, even if they’re willing to cover other physical therapy and occupational therapy centers, because cryotherapy has not yet been verified and approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Breckenridge Insurance offers a competitive and tailored coverage solution for insureds with cryotherapy exposures. Its insurance program dedicated to cryotherapy and sports rehab is available in all 50 states and includes essential coverages like professional liability and general liability, as well as excess, cyber, employment practices liability, and directors and officers (D&O) insurance on a brokerage basis. It provides coverage even if there is a professional/collegiate athlete exposure, and can extend to related exposures alongside cryotherapy, such as physical therapy, sports rehab and massage therapy.
Writing Cyber Is Key to Survival, Munich Re Exec Says*
Trumpeting a message that he conceded might be different from peers, Stefan Golling, a member of Munich Re Board of Management, said that Munich Re remains bullish on the cyber insurance and reinsurance markets.
In fact, “if insurers and reinsurers shy away from the cyber market, they will not survive,” said Golling, Munich Re board member for Global Clients/North America, during a presentation the European reinsurer’s virtual Rendez-Vous presentation.
He noted media reports of a hardening cyber insurance market, reduced available capacity and narrower carrier and reinsurer appetites for cyber risk. Those shouldn’t scare insurers and reinsurers away, Golling said.
“If we want to remain relevant in this industry, relevant for our clients, then we need to find solutions for cyber. And we will,” he said. “We are here to stay in the cyber insurance market,” he said.
In 2020, Munich Re wrote $850 million in cyber premiums, with roughly half of the total in primary insurance and half in reinsurance, Golling said, and his presentation pointed out that Munich Re wrote only about $150 million in cyber insurance and reinsurance six years earlier in 2014. Golling reported that Munich Re’s cyber premium volume is set to soar past the $1 billion mark in 2021 (remaining 50% in primary vs. reinsurance).
Most Commercial Lines Continuing to Win Healthy Price Increases*
While aggregate U.S. commercial insurance price hikes continue to moderate, most lines are still producing robust price increases, according to Willis Towers Watson.
Excess/umbrella produces significant price increases during the 2021 second quarter. As well commercial auto, property, and directors and officers liability increases were also near or above double digits, the company’s Q2 2021 Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey (CLIPS) found.
Overall, the aggregate commercial price increase for Q2 was just above 6 percent compared to the same period a year ago, according to the survey. That’s a slowdown from the 8 percent increase in the 2021 first quarter.
“The rate of price increases has moderated again in the second quarter while still elevated versus historical norms. This is largely driven by significantly lower price increases for excess/umbrella and directors and officers liability than previous quarters,” Yi Jing, director, Insurance Consulting and Technology, Willis Towers Watson, said in prepared remarks.
The perpetual outlier continues to be workers’ compensation, which produced a slight price reduction during the quarter. Reported price changes for account sizes were all below double-digit increases except for specialty lines, Willis Towers Watson said.
CLIPS is a retrospective look at historical changes in commercial property & casualty insurance (P&C) prices and claim cost inflation. Data are based on both new and renewal business figures obtained directly from carriers underwriting the business. For this most recent survey, 41 participating insurers representing approximately 20 percent of the U.S. commercial insurance market (excluding state workers compensation funds) contributed data, Willis Towers Watson said.
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