Summer is upon us, which means many will be reaching for the charcoal and last month's issue of The Insurance Insider to get the barbecue fired up and begin eating al fresco.
However, a winter chill will inevitably set in before last summer's grease has even burned off the griddle, leaving us no choice but to hang up the tongs for another year. And with the first frost of winter will come the biting chill of Solvency II.
Despite the best efforts of European regulators to light a fire beneath (re)insurance executives, the full force of the legislative juggernaut could still come as a shock for a lot of carriers.
Like a dog salivating at the foot of the barbecue, willing a lamb chop to slide off the grill, legacy carriers have been sniffing around for potential run-off acquisitions as things start to heat up ahead of Solvency II's implementation on 1 January 2016.
The new legislation has long promised a feeding frenzy for deal-hungry legacy acquirers. However, the promised banquet has been a rather limited buffet with a number of legacy carriers still left yearning for more.
At The Insurance Insider's annual roundtable at the Insurance and Reinsurance Legacy Association Congress in Brighton, some of the legacy sector's most senior executives told us that Solvency II had been more bark than bite.
Despite the new regulation being tipped as a boon for legacy carriers they may have been pipped to the post by the live players themselves.
More and more of the large continentals are starting to see the value in their own legacy books. They are taking advantage of the breadth of experience within their own claims handling teams to run those books off in-house.
So far, it may sound like the death knell for the starved legacy carriers. But the winds of regulatory change are blowing hard enough to stoke the fire. And on those white-hot coals, our legacy executives are still expecting to cook up a feast.
It is thought that while the continent's largest players already have a strategy cooked up, the smaller and medium-sized players will have some tasty legacy morsels for sale as the full effects of Solvency II start to bite.
However there may be rain clouds on the horizon. While the run-off sector fans the flames, ready to scrap over those succulent titbits, our panellists questioned whether private equity players are waiting in the wings to swamp the legacy market with capital as they have done in the live sphere.
To read this year's Legacy Roundtable please click here.
Enjoy the read!
Dan Ascher
Reporter, The Insurance Insider