Of all these different markets, the domestic non-life insurance market spends the most time in the spotlight, due to both its importance and the challenges in it, including the volatility of premiums over the last few years and the availability of insurance in certain sectors and for certain risks.
From a theoretical point of view, some observers argued that key determinants of long-term interest rates – such as the global riskless real rate of interest and the real risk premium – had indeed been influenced by the globalised environment12. In these circumstances, the ability of short-term interest rate changes to influence long-term rates could be more problematic than would otherwise be the case.