Acta Oeconomica Pragensia 2011, 19(2):50-65 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aop.330

Qualitative Changes in Risk Trends Pose Challenges for Insurability

Martina Bejrová, Jiří Králík

Technická univerzita v Liberci, Ekonomická fakulta (martina.bejrova@tul.cz, jiri.kralik@tul.cz).

Our rapidly changing world has been challenging insurers to keep the pace. Given the qualitative changes in risk trends, the insurance industry has encountered a problem of insurability limits and shifting boundaries of the private insurance sector. The possibilities of covering enormous uncertainties, particular risks and new or modified risks are discussed in this paper. The basic problem of how the nature of risks has evolved over time and obstacles to insuring against certain risks are explained in this paper, and some innovative ways to overcome the mentioned obstacles are listed. One of the most recently discussed issues is the impact of catastrophic losses and man-made disasters since their frequency and extent have been continuously growing recently. In order to handle the rapid changes in our world and to maintain its stable position, the insurance industry has found some ways to heighten the limits of insurability, i.e., adjustments of terms and conditions, careful risk selection and pricing, reinsurance, innovations, public private partnerships, or multi-source financing of incurred losses have been used recently. However, given the more stringent regulatory requirements which are going to be implemented by 2013, capital requirements may increase and thus the capacity of the insurance industry might be reduced and the industry might have to find other solutions for heightening its capacity.

Keywords: qualitative changes in risk trends, shifting boundaries in insurability, catastrophic losses, man-made disasters

JEL classification: D74, D81, D82, G22

Published: April 1, 2011  Show citation