Capital Raising, page-29

In practice if someone offers me the book value in the next few months I will be happy and take it having paid around half that.
If they wait a few months or years:

• And legal action is won boosting book value or
• Spin-off co is fully reserved and Chch earthquakes thereby dealt with

Well then I think the market may demand more of a premium.
I agree fully with the theory that insurance is commoditized and highly competitive without excess returns on capital. TWR as a small company has no such advantage.
TWR and QBE trade at a discount because of poor performance in the past and the point which sticks out to me is will such poor performance continue into the future? For the reasons detailed I believe in the case of TWR the future will look different. I observe that the vast majority of profitable companies trade at a premium to the book value or the true value of a business to a shrewd analyst.
NZ probably classes as an "emerging market" relative to the McKinsey thing though. I wouldn't be sniffing at a 9% ROIC, the sooner TWR starts modernising their systems the happier I will be as that's where a competitive advantage could potentially lie.