Pacific Insurance Market Report 2015

Continuing competition in the Pacific region ensured that the insurance market remained a buyer’s market in 2014, with insurers realizing sizeable profits despite rate reductions.

Fewer catastrophic losses have ensured that the market has remained profitable. This holds true for the entire Pacific region.

Continuing competition in the Pacific region ensured that the insurance market remained a buyer’s market in 2014. Fewer catastrophic losses — both locally and abroad — resulted in market profitability, allowing insurers to remain competitive.

Other key findings from the report:

• In Australia, all industry segments within the property market realized rate reductions as a result of increased competition during 2014; similarly, the sustained decade-long decline in liability premiums continued in 2014, and is expected to carry over into 2015.
• The passage of the Health and Safety Reform bill in New Zealand, which takes effect in April and places greater responsibility on companies’ management to ensure the health and safety of their employees, is expected to bring an increase in penalties, regulatory investigations, and prosecutions.
• Rates for almost all classes of insurance in Papua New Guinea remained stable, except for property insurance, as a result of continuing sizable fire claims.
• In 2014, rates for most classes of insurance, except medical, declined in Fiji as a result of the introduction of new underwriters to the insurance market and renewed confidence in the economy following recent general elections.