What happens on the Hamburg Insurance Exchange?

On the Exchange, premiums are negotiated among insurers, underwriting agents and brokers and apportionment is assigned. Furthermore, documents are exchanged and business transactions are carried out which arise from the administration of insurance contracts in regard to operation and casualty.

In this way, predominantly domestic business is concerned in regard to subscribed risks on the Hamburg Insurance Exchange, and, in fact, principally in the sector of the so-called commercial insurance branches (transport, industrial fire, industrial liability). Re-insurances are only handled marginally and first and foremost on a facultative basis.

On both counts, the Hamburg Insurance Exchanges differs from Lloyd’s of London. The proportion of international business accounts for more than half of the policies placed in London. It conducts itself in a similar fashion in regard to the closing of re-insurances.

While the closing of transport insurances used to comprise a large percentage of the business performed on the exchange, this is no longer the case today. The reason is certainly not that transport insurance as such is less significant in the marine merchant city of Hamburg, but rather that in regard to the insurance of goods, individual contracts used to be drawn up, while today, annual contracts predominate – these refer to the so-called open-floating policies. In regaard to the latter form of insurance, the interests insured when signing a contract are only signed according to the category in the form of a framework contract, and only after their formation are they to be declared individually to the insurer.

World-wide, insurance exchanges may also still be found in London and in Rotterdam. Thus, the insurance exchange mirrors the particular significance of the Hamburg insurance location.

The Hamburg Exchange is located in the Chamber of Commerce and trading takes place on workdays from 1:30 to 2:00 p.m.