Swiss Re and AXA have announced that Stefan LIPPE, Swiss Re's Group CEO from 2009 to 2012 and AXA'S Director and head of the Audit Committee after that, passed away earlier this week, at 65, of complications from Covid-19.

UK-based financial group AVIVA informed its Italian subsidiary - AVIVA Italy supports the Mutual Aid Fund, founded by Giuseppe SALA, Mayor of Milan. The aim of the fund is to help those who are facing the hardest difficulties caused by the economic and health emergency relating to Covid-19.

CROATIA osiguranje (CO), one of the largest insurer in the Adriatic region, annonced that based on currently available information, it cannot reliably estimate the amount of potential losses that would result from the direct impact of COVID-19.

TRIGLAV Group informed in a statement its expectations regarding the impact of the pandemic on Group's performance in 2020. Thus, compared to the published business plan for 2020 in December 2019 - profit before tax of EUR 95 million - EUR 105 million and GWP of around EUR 1.2 billion, the most recent scenario published by the company as a result of Coronavirus pandemic indicates a decline in Group FY2020 profit of 10%-25%, while in case of GWP the forecast indicate a decrease of 3-5%.

Polish insurance group PZU (Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen), one of the largest CEE insurer informed its Management Board decided to submit a motion to PZU's Ordinary Shareholder Meeting on the distribution of FY2019 PZU's net profit.

Austrian VIG Group announced that due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis it expects FY2020 burdened results. "Against the backdrop of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and the associated increased insecurities on capital markets and on the operative business development, VIG Group expects dampening effects on its full year results 2020".

Reinsurer VIG Re, part of Austrian insurance group VIG reported FY2019 total premium volume of EUR 527 million, up by 15.4% y-o-y - exceeding for the first time the EUR 500 million benchmark. At the same time, the company FY2019 profit before tax increased by 0.3% y-o-y to EUR 22.6 million while the reported combined ratio of 96% is 3.5 percentage points above 2018 level.

SCOR has been informed of Fitch's decision to affirm the Group's Financial Strength Rating of 'AA-' (Very Strong) and Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'A+'. Fitch has also affirmed the ratings of SCOR's core operating subsidiaries. The Outlooks are Stable.

Vancho BALEN and Luka BABIC are the two new members appointed in the Management Board of Croatia Osiguranje on 19 April, effective immediately. Their mandates will last until 2022 end-year.

Based on preliminary figures for the first quarter of 2020, HANNOVER Re anticipates Group net income of about EUR 300 million (Q1 2019: EUR 293.7 million) and an operating profit (EBIT) of about EUR 426 million (EUR 450.0 million).

Miroslav SINGER, Director of Institutional Affairs & CEE Chief Economist at GENERALI Holding CEE, was officially appointed as a member of the Czech government's National Economic Council (NERV) established on April 9 to tackle the impacts of the coronavirus crisis on economy.

German insurer TALANX informed it withdraws the outlook for the financial year 2020 due to the "ongoing corona pandemic and the considerable uncertainty around how the economic and capital markets environment will develop".

French reinsurer SCOR informed that at April 1, 2020 reinsurance renewals, SCOR Global P&C GWP up for renewal by 5.7% at constant exchange rates to EUR 504 million, while benefitting from broadly improving market conditions as evidenced by a 6.6% overall increase in pricing.

In light of the significant uncertainties presented by COVID-19 and the need for continued prudence, AVIVA announced changes to the remuneration of Executive Directors and the AVIVA Leadership Team.

Austrian insurance group UNIQA informed that based on preliminary work on the result for the first quarter of 2020, the significant negative effects of COVID-19 on the capital markets in the first quarter of 2020 will have a negative impact, above all, on the investment result of UNIQA.

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions appoints Matthias Grass as Chief Financial Officer. In this role, Mr. Grass will be responsible for overseeing Swiss Re Corporate Solutions' Finance function, ensuring the business unit achieves its financial targets, and implementing the business unit's strategy.

Swiss Re's shareholders approved all proposals put forward by the Board of Directors at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Zurich last week. This included a 5% increase in the regular dividend to CHF 5.90 per share and the authorisation of a new public share buyback programme of up to CHF 1.0 billion purchase value.

In its SEOnet announcement "Amendment to financial calendar" of 26 March 2020, the Sava Insurance Group announced it prepared a preliminary assessment of the impacts of the circumstances related to COVID-19 on the operations of the Group and its solvency position.

Everest Insurance announced the addition of Ralph van Helden as the Business Development Director for Everest Global Markets, which includes Everest Insurance (Ireland), DAC (EIID), and Lloyd's Syndicate 2786.

PZU and ALIOR Bank have launched an opportunity for innovative solutions to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects, by recruiting to that end startups that can present the best innovative projects. Applications will be collected until April 26^th.