London, 8th March 2017 – David Carruthers, Head of Research at Credit Benchmark, will be speaking about ‘Recent Developments in Crowd-Sourced Credit Risk Benchmarking’ at RiskMinds Insurance at Hotel Okura, Amsterdam at 2.35pm on Wednesday March 15th.
With insurance companies around the world facing major challenges, from record low interest rates and low annuity rates, to a climate of rising political instability, to regulatory pressure especially under Solvency II, there is a growing need for reliable data around all asset classes to reduce risk. One of the key challenges for insurance companies is that this data is very sparse and difficult to estimate for new asset classes and illiquid assets, raising issues for both regulators as well as insurance companies.
“Access to reliable and robust data for all asset classes is creating challenges for insurance companies around the world as they face greater regulatory scrutiny and testing market conditions,” said Carruthers. “With a growing trend towards more esoteric and illiquid assets, and a lack of available credit data, insurance firms are looking for new ways to assess the credit risk of their investments. Credit estimates are required for a growing number of assets.”
Credit Benchmark uses the aggregated wisdom of bank credit analysts to provide credit estimates for a growing number of obligors, many of which are unrated by the major agencies. Since this data is provided by IRB banks, it is subject to exacting levels of scrutiny and regulation. Insurance companies can use this data to assess their own credit risk, that of their counterparts and investments, as well as providing a benchmark for their own internal models.
