[originaltext] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you Mr. Chairma

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you Mr. Chairman for that kind introduction. This morning I’m here to share some thoughts about our industry—the insurance.
    [23] It is the job of insurance to reduce or remove risks. And that’s something today’s businesses need. In a world where new risks seem to be created out of thin air every day, businesses must be able to reduce their risks—otherwise no one will ever want to invest or take a risk again.
    How do we respond to a situation where our customers want us, but in which all our thinking and planning was just the opposite? How do we respond to a world that looks the same, in which people continue to go about their daily business, their ordinary lives as we insist on calling them, but a world which feels tangibly different…a world in which a new mood now prevails.
    [24] The world is different—we now need to behave differently. And that’s the challenge before the insurance industry today. Then how differently? Well to try to give you some of the answers, I want to cover three main points this morning.
    First, I want to take a critical look at some of the trends and pressures affecting the US and world markets over the last year. You’ll be familiar with many of these individually, but it’s when we look at them collectively—when we see the pattern they form—that it becomes clear we’re now operating in unknown—and perhaps dangerous—waters. All of this, I believe, has a great deal of impact on our current thinking about the so-called "insurance cycle".
    Next, I want to put forward the response which I believe we need to make as an industry to this new insurance environment.
    Finally, I want to share with you how the company is taking control of its own destiny and will no longer allow external forces such as the insurance cycle to drive it in a direction it no longer wishes to travel.
    [25] So let’s begin by looking at the state of the insurance industry and the economy last year and think about what all of this means for the insurance cycle.
    23. What do today’s companies need according to the speaker?
    24. What is the challenge of the insurance industry?
    25. What is the insurance company thinking about by studying market trends and economy?