Economics

SIA chair­man Rolf Dörig takes a look at the cur­rent chal­lenges fac­ing the Swiss in­sur­ance in­dus­try.

How has the in­sur­ance in­dus­try coped with the COVID-19 cri­sis so far? Rue­di Ku­bat (Al­lianz Su­isse) and Ivo Men­zinger (Swiss Re) take stock of the sit­u­a­tion.

In­sur­ers are ma­jor in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors with a long-term in­vest­ment hori­zon and a pref­er­ence for safe­ty.

Swiss pri­vate in­sur­ers are ma­jor tax­pay­ers and, as such, make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try's pulic sec­tor.

In this in­ter­view, Mau­rice Di­er­ick from Swiss­grid, the na­tion­al grid com­pa­ny, ex­plains why an elec­tric­i­ty short­age is one of the biggest risks fac­ing Switzer­land.

Why can’t a pan­dem­ic be in­sured by pri­vate in­sur­ers alone? Our lat­est ex­plana­to­ry video shows the rea­sons. 

The Swiss gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a ‘pool so­lu­tion’ to cush­ion the eco­nom­ic im­pact of fu­ture pan­demics. Ivo Men­zinger has worked on the pos­si­ble struc­tures for the so­lu­tion.

Pop­u­la­tion growth, glob­al mo­bil­i­ty or eco­log­i­cal changes in­crease the risk of pan­demics. Is pan­dem­ic risk in­sur­able? The an­swer is, on­ly with gov­er­nance par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Our lives in 2020 are dom­i­nat­ed by the coro­na cri­sis. Nonethe­less, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and re­form of the pen­sion sys­tem re­main cen­tral chal­lenges that we must con­tin­ue to ad­dress.