The insurance industry is global in nature. Insurers and reinsurers are critically important to the world economy. They assume and transfer all manner of risk across each continent and serve as an enormous investor base for the world’s capital markets. Risk is increasingly shared among traditional and new market entrants. Risk generated in one part of the world is distributed immediately across multiple markets, including to players such as other insurers, reinsurers, private equity sponsors or capital market investors. The insurance industry constantly evolves and requires regulatory regimes and market participants to adapt on a frequent basis. Regulatory issues arising in one market may influence the way in which similar regulatory concerns are addressed in other markets. To understand the insurance industry, one must have a solid understanding of global developments. We prepared this publication as a tool to assist readers in obtaining such understanding.
We realize that no one publication could provide adequate coverage to each and every recent global development without becoming cumbersome. Accordingly, this publication attempts to provide an overview of major legal and market developments in the global insurance industry arising over the past year. We have focused on developments in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Asia and other markets with intense international insurance activity, such as Bermuda.
This review has been produced by the Insurance and Financial Services group of Sidley Austin LLP. Sidley is one of the world’s premier law firms, with over 2,000 lawyers across 20 offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Sidley is one of only a few internationally recognized law firms to have a substantial, multidisciplinary practice devoted to the insurance industry. We have more than 85 lawyers devoted to providing both transactional and dispute resolution services to the insurance industry throughout the world. Our Insurance and Financial Services group has an intimate knowledge of, and appreciation for, the insurance industry and its unique issues and challenges. Regular clients include many of the largest insurance and reinsurance companies, their investors and capital providers, brokers, banks, investment banking firms and regulatory agencies for which we provide regulatory, corporate, capital markets, securities, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, insurance-linked securities, derivatives, tax, reinsurance dispute, class action defense, insolvency and other transactional and litigation services.
We hope you enjoy the 2019 edition of the Sidley Global Insurance Review.
