Canadian market should strive for consistency: Lloyd’s CEO

The Canadian insurance industry needs to strive for pricing consistency, Richard Ward, Lloyd’s CEO, told an audience at the Risk and Insurance Management Society’s conference in Halifax.

For the third year in a row, Lloyd’s underwriters have said that cycle management and profitable underwriting are the insurance industry’s top challenges, Ward said, noting the recent results at Lloyd’s suggest progress is being made and reinsurers in Canada posted their largest profit last year in decades.

“Unfortunately a few good years in a row can not correct long term under performance,” he warned. “Moreover, there is firm evidence of increasing pressure on pricing levels and on terms and conditions at the same time as claim loss trends upwards.”

So far, Canada has had the good fortune of having its biggest catastrophe years happen during years of strong profitability, Ward observed. But it would be foolish to expect this luck to hold out.

“We do not expect bumper profits every year, nor are we calling for price increases across the board,” he told the delegates.