Market Claims Study 2023

We are excited to release the first independent claims study of the European W&I insurance market.

Use of W&I insurance has increased over the last 10 years in a buoyant M&A market, particularly in the private equity space, driven by parties to M&A realising the benefits of a buyer having recourse to A-rated insurers whilst a seller is able to achieve a clean exit. This increased reliance on insurance products makes it more important than ever for clients to have confidence in W&I insurance and the ability to recover through claims.

Individual insurers and brokers regularly publish their own claims data, but for a claims study to be of real value it needs to be broader. It needs to capture data from multiple insurers, needs to cover policies placed by multiple brokers, and needs to cover a sufficient lookback period to give a comprehensive view of the claims market.

The HWF study does that. It’s based on anonymised and aggregated data captured from 16 leading insurers in the European transactional risk market. That means
this study is the first true independent study of the state of W&I insurance claims in Europe.

The results provide compelling evidence of the importance of W&I insurance. They show tangible benefits to insured parties of a well scoped W&I policy and, ultimately, that there is a well-developed insurance marketplace accustomed to settling claims of all sizes efficiently and pro-actively.