Tourism and Aviation Among the Sectors Giving Insurers the Most Concern in the Pandemic

The aviation and tourism sectors are seen as areas of concern for insurers, according to a Gallagher survey released on Tuesday.

Aviation (26.9 percent) was the top sector of concern while tourism (10 percent) was third-highest among sectors cited by underwriters when asked the ones that most concerned them in their portfolios. The oil and gas sector (26.4 percent) was second.

For the survey, Gallagher wrote to 76 individual underwriters representing 46 insurance companies or Lloyd’s syndicates.

It comes as major airlines around the world face an uncertain recovery, and tourism destinations around the world have suffered because of a lack of traffic and travel restrictions. As travel does return, new credit restrictions for corporate travel agencies will bring heavier financial burdens.

“We would expect to see oil and gas in here given the scale of the industry for this class of insurance,” said Matthew Solley, managing director of structured credit and political risks for Gallagher, in a statement.

“Aviation is a more recent area of growth for this insurance class and underwriters are understandably concerned about the impact of the sector as it is arguably one of the worst hit by Covid-19,” he added. “Tourism, however, isn’t traditionally an industry that we would expect to represent large exposure for this area of the market. As such, despite obvious concerns connected to this sector, it is interesting that underwriters are reporting it in the top three.”

When asked about claims trends as a result of Covid-19, just 29 percent of the insurers surveyed reported claims registered that they consider attributable to Covid-19, the report said.

Here is the full survey:

Download (PDF, 7.44MB)