Life Risk News: Volume 1, Issue 1, May 2022
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Life Risk News.
Investors all over the world, both institutional and retail, have investment exposure to life risk. Hardly anyone calls it that, however, due to the industry consisting of numerous, siloed sub-sectors. But the foundation of investments such as life insurance company stocks, longevity risk transfer, life settlements and equity release mortgages (to name but a few), is life itself – or to be more accurate, the cessation of it.
Life Risk News is a new magazine, published by the European Life Settlement Association (ELSA), that is designed to help institutional investors – both those with and without existing life risk exposure – better understand the nuances of the numerous sub-sectors of this industry. Life Risk News will be published monthly, both in a digital magazine format and online, for you to digest however you prefer.
In this inaugural issue, we start with a question that is near and dear to our hearts: Life Risk: The Biggest Investment Market You Have Never Heard Of is this month’s cover story, where we discuss some of the nuances of the space and its current and potential size.
We couldn’t publish a life risk-focused magazine in early 2022 without referencing the Covid-19 pandemic, and our second feature article this month, Life Risk Industry Resilience Provides Confidence to Market, provides a comforting view of how the life insurance industry has withstood the Covid-19 pandemic – so far.
Like many trade magazines, Life Risk News will be publishing opinion and commentary pieces from industry insiders. Luca Tres of Guy Carpenter has provided his thoughts more generally on the Life Risk market in a commentary piece, It’s Just the Beginning for Life Risk, and Cory Zass of Actuarial Risk Management has also contributed a commentary article; Surviving the Below Normal Interest Rate Environment With Alternative Investments explains how this asset class can help institutional investors and their search for yield.
We’ve a Q&A with Life Settlement investor SL Investment Management’s Patrick McAdams – who was ELSA’s founder and is still actively involved with the organisation; and for the final piece this month we’ve also interviewed Simon Erritt of Coventry Capital; Ann Juliano of D2 Alternative Investments and Luca Tres of Guy Carpenter to get their thoughts on The State of the Life Settlement Market.
We’re already well underway with planning for next month’s issue, so, if you’re interested in getting in touch, whether that’s with an idea for a topic that you’d like to see covered, or just to offer some feedback, please do so at [email protected] or send a note to the team at [email protected]. In the meantime, on behalf of ELSA, we hope you enjoy this inaugural issue of Life Risk News; click the link below to download the PDF magazine.
Greg Winterton, Contributing Editor, Life Risk News