Product, territorial expansion to drive business growth next year

Risk managers will be pleased by findings of a Guy Carpenter Survey that suggests risk transfer partners will focus on product development and expansion into new geographic markets to drive growth next year.

The survey also reveals that the insurance industry views cyber-attacks, terrorism and climate change as the top emerging risks facing the industry in 2015. Forty percent of respondents to the third annual Guy Carpenter Survey of insurance and reinsurance executives attending the 2014 Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) meeting believe new products represent the biggest opportunity to expand their business in 2015. This is an increase of 24 percent from last year’s survey.

Risk transfer partners view entering new geographic markets (23 percent) as the next biggest opportunity. Last year this was seen as the number one driver for growth.

New distribution channels (17 percent) and mergers and acquisitions (14 percent) were also cited as key growth opportunities in 2015.

“The insurance industry continues to see significant opportunities to aggregate and analyse massive amounts of data and harness this information quickly to respond to changes in the market and gain a competitive advantage,” the Survey said in part.