2/26/2021 Three Things We Learned

Investment Groups

This week in insurance we are following earnings releases, new launches and a report on industry hiring and talent.  Here are the three things we learned:

  1. More earnings to look at this week and a theme juxtaposing a large incumbent with a newly public startup.  The incumbent, Liberty Mutual reports a profitable quarter and 2020 despite challenges from COVID and the economy.  More of the same with large insurers, their scale is helping them whether the difficulties of the year.  Then there is Root reporting more revenue growth and significantly improved loss ratio from one year ago.  Their renewal book shows even better numbers which are promising for them as they mature though they still have work to do to further improve loss ratio and reduce their customer acquisition costs.
  2. Once again Chubb is making news launching a new digital brand that will offer personal cyber as a first product.  The new brand will offer an end-to-end customer experience making insurance simple for the consumer and looks to likely add more products.  Another more traditional business model is featured with the launch of SiriusPointwith over $3B in capital described in the press release as ‘one of the first substantial re/insurers of the Class of 2020’.
  3. The insurance industry added nearly 20K jobs during the pandemic year of 2020.  Technology, analytics and operational roles are the most in-demand and hard to find.  This is no surprise as we are seeing insurers continue to transform and innovate and these skills are essential to those plans.  Talent acquisition costs will rise and so will competition among carriers, insurtechs and ecosystems like Amazon and Google.

Thank you for continuing to follow us and for your feedback.  We will be continuing to scan the industry and send these updates weekly.  Coming soon: an introduction to our business operating model framework that helps insurers with transformation, new business models and integrating acquisitions and insurtech partners.  Enjoy the last days of February and get ready for Spring!