Holistic Brief: Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Insurance

The earth is going through an unprecedented transformation from small business to large
corporation. Especially, when daily life confined in home and state enforced quarantine,
movement become impossible and so on. Unlike all other industry insurance industry has
been in steps further level due to COVID-19 as Virus mainly affecting public health but lots
of other stuffs also being affected that caused unbearable sufferings in our daily activities.
And During this time there’s lots of question have been raised how insurance will be
affected? If affect how it would be look like?
According to study carried out by Insurance Talent JACOBSON, 43.2 percent insurance
company have adjusted their hiring plan due to COVID-19 and one third of company did
make any changes rest of the companies are evaluating feasibility of bring changes. The
hiring shifts brought on by the coronavirus seem relatively minimal in relation to the overall
economy. About 18 percent of insurers surveyed are currently on or anticipating a hiring
freeze, compared to 37% of organizations on hiring freezes across all industries. Its likely
insurance will see delayed labour market effects brought on by the longer-term economic
direction.

As infected cases surges day be day now it reached 12.16 million and death toll surpasses
around 551,974, the importance of life insurance increasing according to U.S. World news
The Corona virus making more people think about the importance of life insurance to
protect their families if anything happens to them – even if they're healthy now. "The
demand for life insurance is up," says Byron Udell, president of AccuQuote, an independent
life insurance brokerage firm. His company is taking about 35% to 50% more applications
each day and is hiring more agents.[ CITATION 1 \l 16393 ]
But social distancing rules have made it difficult to follow the regular procedure for getting a
policy, and companies are being more careful about insuring some people who face greater
medical risk.
Even some company thinking hiring more employee as people lean on life insurance about
their financial security so frequently it become harder for limited employee to fulfil client
desire so they decline to respond but matter of sorrow is that more and more
inconvenience caught in sight
 Insurers imposes more premium
 More conditions added like unnecessary movement ban, travel restriction if violate
any conditions insured would not be covered
 Sometimes client have wait 1-3 month for coverage
 Insurance policy changing constantly as symptom of COVID-19 changes.

In very beginning of outbreak a large number of countries-imposed restriction on sea port,

cruise line business even tourism (related to ship). It is estimated that most of world trade
approximately 90 percent done through sea so when some ports deny entry of ship
therefore it become impossible for ship to reach destination ass result shipping company
have pay the damage for perishable goods. Even in North America, there is huge cruise line
business but with surges of COVID-19 infected case. (2)

COVID-19 already bought lots of hazard in small business to large one but it become quite
eminent for insurance company to cope with large scale of demands from insureds.
According to biggest trade credit insurance Atradius it is expected that the global insolvency
in corporate would be approximate 2.4% most resulting from Corona Virus outbreak.
The prospect of a global recession was reflected in an index of European insurance shares
which has tumbled to 3-1/2-year lows, losing 30% from peaks hit on Feb 19. SXIP before
concern about the potential of the deadly virus took hold. (3)
(Graphic: Insurers face double whammy from coronavirus claims, investment losses – here)

References

(1) Lankford, K. (2020, April 14). Coronavirus and Life Insurance. Retrieved from U.S. NEWS:
money.usnews.com

(2) Pearson, M. (2020). Coronavirus: Impact on marine insurance. Hamburg, Germany: International
Union of Marine Insurance.

(3) Cohn, C. (2020, March Thursday ). Insurers face double whammy from coronavirus crisis.
Retrieved from REUTERS: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-insurance-
investme-idUSKBN20Z0UD