French insurers Covid impact: lower property and casualty claims, higher gains?

Senior SwissThink Consultant Lotfi Elbarhdadi and Ludovic Antony analyze how the economic slowdown and the population lockdown due to COVID 19 translate into unprecedented decline in loss experience in many property/casualty insurance lines. As an example, in personal motor insurance, less traffic means less claims. Insurance premiums being paid periodically in advance, the lockdown would likely translate in higher underwriting profits for insurers, everything being equal. In this article, we apply a scenario-based approach to estimate the likely impact of lockdown and economic slowdown on underwriting profits of certain P/C lines in France. The estimates are provided considering a one month slowdown only (e.g. March 2020).