000 and construction 104000 are be sparedThe question of the departments was otherwise more delicateHow out of this impasse Steelworkers demonize the futures market4 billion aid promised by the IMF in OctoberThey had been established on the basis of growth between 0There is a natural cooperation between usBut they approach maturity in dispersed order44 billion euros the history not stutters so far6 billion on 17 February in addition to the already insured 17We begin to talk even with the RepublicansAre insurers promised to the same fate as the bankers
Of course, the first of them, AIG, played the business bank, collapsed, engulfed 180 billion in assistance and attempts to rise from its ashes. But avoid hasty conclusions. Of course, Christine Lagarde said Friday that it was ready to help the "systemic risk" insurance companies, the image of what has been done to maintain the banking system afloat. It is not so that the sector is immediately fell ill and was the tail to counter. The Minister of economy has recognized that the French insurers have so far resisted well to the crisis. Of course, stock woes of AXA cast doubt on the health of the sector. Under the good old adage that there is no smoke without fire. But this is not because the French leader of insurance has clearly lost touch with the market (hence a fall in the title of 60 since the beginning of the year) that the insurers are more capable to serve their policyholders and manage their assets in good fathers.
Of course, the crisis marks red iron accounts of insurers. Given the masses of assets they hold in their balance sheets, the opposite would be very surprising. Most saw their results in some quarters, losing the patiently reconquered land since the crisis of 2002-2003. All bear the stigma of the Tailspin of the markets on their portfolios, impairment losses, provisions or other glitches.
Then, it's true, insurers start 2009 much less rich than they were a year ago. End of 2007, the sector was still in unrealised gain on all classes of assets. Today, if insurers have a mattress, it is as thick as a camping mat. Their own funds have melted under the effect of sustainable so-called impairment and they cover less comfortable way their regulatory solvency requirements.
But insurers are not bankers. Why Because they have no liquidity problem. And, for a very simple reason: they cash bonuses before having to repay claims possible. What made them cash collectors. They are in the area of "systemic risk" in two specific cases: in a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina or massive redemptions by insured persons of their contract of life insurance. According to the supervisory authority, which monitors the second point as the milk on the fire, the insured have hitherto resisted the panic.
Above all, insurance is the Kingdom of the long term. The insurance liabilities, which realized the obligations towards insureds, have a long enough life. It is what allows insurers to invest in the long term and play a significant role in the financing of the economy.
So much for the theory. The practice is necessarily, a little different. As recently noted (Gema) insurance mutual companies group, "an insurer, when he sold a contract, sells a fraction of its balance sheet and the confidence it inspires." But, honestly, which includes a balance sheet of insurance company The insurers themselves admit: it is almost impossible to examine their accounts from published data, which mix the operational and financial. the past and the present; the fair value and the historical cost.
Short, it is the syndrome of the black box. Has just been understood that insurance is an industry with low margins, where it won more money by optimizing its management by selling its contracts and where it needs financial products to produce its results. That doesn't bother anyone during a boom becomes explosive topic in times of crisis. The Kingdom of the blind, how to distinguish the healthy to the sick
The problem is that insurance was affected also by the "pro-cyclicality" virus, whereas its vocation is to the insured from the dictatorship of the short term. It is quite tempting to berate the accounting dogma of fair value, which requires insurers to see latent losses on assets that they have no intention to sell. Or the rules on solvency. Designed to protect insured persons, they are used too strictly, so to defreeze. "These margins of solvency must be cushions for cushioning, not concrete cubes which increase the violence," said Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Executive Board in September of AXA. It is regrettable that these words have not yet heard. Today, insurers who did not the stupidity to move away from their business need less equity rules of the game adapted.
