MONTE CARLO, 13 September, 2015 – Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon plc (NYSE:AON), reports today on the state of the global insurance market in its annual Insurance Risk Study.

The in-depth report, Global Insurance Market Opportunities, reveals that global insurance premium totaled USD5.0 trillion during 2014, with global insurance capital standing at USD4.2 trillion at year-end, an increase of six percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, global property casualty premium totaled USD1.4 trillion for 2014, with an average penetration rate of 1.9 percent across the world’s top 50 insurance markets.

The report highlights that losses from extreme corporate liability events continue to have a marked impact, with 86 individual losses reported in excess of USD1 billion since 1989. It estimates there is a one-in-two chance annually of an individual corporate liability loss in excess of USD10 billion – and that nearly 50 percent of such losses result from environmental, products, premises and operations liability, and similar causes that are potentially insurable.

The Study further reveals that 13 countries achieved annual growth of more than 10 percent over the last five years. Over this period, Nigeria was shown to have the lowest combined ratio at 84.8 percent, while Romania had the highest combined ratio at 120.3 percent.

In 2014, 27 of the 50 countries analysed in the Study achieved combined ratios below 95 percent, with Indonesia leading the rankings with a combined ratio of 83.6 percent, followed by Brazil and Malaysia.

According to Aon’s Country Opportunity Index, which ranks markets based on a combination of profitability, growth potential, and political stability, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore were the top performers, with Ecuador, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Australia, U.A.E., Brazil, South Africa and Norway also in the top quartile.

The 2015 Study identifies seven key business opportunities for insurers over the next five to 10 years: US mortgage credit, the sharing economy, reputation and brand, microinsurance, corporate liability covers, terrorism cover, and cyber risk. It highlights that three key strands of the market – demand driven by new emerging risks, supply from new capital, and empowering data and analytics – have all seen favourable developments, contributing to a positive outlook for the insurance industry.

Stephen Mildenhall, Global CEO of Analytics for Aon, said: “A core theme of the Study is how data and analytics can, and must, provide the glue between supply and demand to ensure a growing, thriving insurance market over the coming decade. We believe that while data, technology, and analytics are driving many of the emerging risk perils, they simultaneously hold the promise of delivering parallel solutions through the new capabilities they enable.”

The Insurance Risk Study is this year celebrating its 10^th edition. The report looks at how the dynamic global economy has changed the re/insurance industry over the past decade, reviews the current standing of the sector, and forecasts how it will evolve over the next 10 years. As well as providing a state-of-the-market analysis, it provides insightful commentary on a range of important existing and emerging topics for the industry.

To view the full 2015 Insurance Risk Study, please click the following link: http://bit.ly/1VCMvlE   

ENDS