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Marsh pitches “bridge solution” to insurers as a plan B to Brexit

  • Publish Date: Posted about 7 years ago

Marsh has put together what it has called a legally watertight work-around that would allow insurer’s access to the European markets at no greater cost than the existing means of access. The proposal has been worked on by Marsh with a number of licenced carriers. Mark Weil, CEO of Marsh UK and Ireland, said that inspiration for the work around came from fronting arrangements commonly used in Latin American markets. The bridge solution addresses issues with fronting in South America, including the fact that it tends to be on an insurer-by-insurer basis. Weil said, "We formalised this to create a collective structure, which could be created now without needing to wait for the Brexit negotiations to be completed and wouldn't be subject to further EU fragmentation. This would allow clients to have a structure which works for them today." Weil also highlighted issues with two common solutions being explored by insurers, namely that setting up subsidiaries in the EU would need to be resilient and were at risk of being “timed out” during negotiations. There was also a risk of political interference by local governments and if the EU were to split up further those subsidiaries would fail to be a solution.