Reinsurance News

The underwriting performance of the reinsurance industry tracked by Willis Re for its reports has improved, but CEO James Kent warns that underlying returns on equity (RoE) are still “languishing below the cost of capital.”

French reinsurer SCOR is lifting its target for premiums underwritten at its property and casualty re/insurance division, as it looks to take advantage of harder market conditions, which will result in an increase to its Nat Cat budget for 2022 and the company said it will need to further optimise its retrocession as well.

Despite feeling that reinsurance and ILS pricing has not risen by as much as it should have, Niklaus Hilti, Head of Insurance Linked Strategies at Credit Suisse Asset Management, believes that the market has largely displayed very high levels of discipline lately.

Helped by a record period of catastrophe bond issuance in the first-half of 2021, alternative capital levels in reinsurance, largely in insurance-linked securities (ILS) formats, have now returned to their previous record year-end level of $97 billion, according to Aon.

Munich Re’s CEO of Reinsurance, Torsten Jeworrek explained today that the company expects positive market conditions at the next renewal season, but said it is vital market pricing sustains the recent gains made to ensure risks are adequately covered.

In a recent Artemis Live video interview, Christian Mumenthaler, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Swiss Re, explained that he expects reinsurance prices will continue their firming trend at the January 2022 renewal season.

Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited, the Bermuda headquartered insurance and reinsurance underwriter, has increased its third-party and insurance-linked securities (ILS) assets under management by more than 6% in the first-half of 2021, lifting them to $850 million by the end of June.

The United Kingdom needs to work with insurance, reinsurance and capital markets participants, as well as regulators, to develop a “flourishing insurance securitisation market”, making the most of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) regulatory regime that was introduced in 2017, according to a lobby group.

Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has revised its outlook for the global reinsurance industry from negative to stable, saying that price increases are set to drive stronger earnings for the sector going forwards.

Catastrophe risk modeller RMS has provided the clearest view of the escalation in industry loss estimates for recent hurricane Ida, pegging the total onshore and offshore losses for the Gulf region at between $25 billion and $35 billion.