Swiss Re says increased reinsurance supply a positive, will align alt capital where it makes sense

Speaking ahead of the 2026 Baden-Baden gathering, Leopoldo Camara, Head of P&C Reinsurance Northern, Central & Eastern Europe at Swiss Re outlined that more reinsurance capital is needed in the market to address growing, interconnected risks, while also emphasising that the reinsurer will use its deep risk expertise to align alternative capital where it makes sense.

“We see more capital flowing into the markets and into the reinsurance industry, and we think that is actually good news because more capital is needed to address the growing risks that we all need to deal with,” Camara explained.

Moreover, Camara underscored that different types of capital play different roles across the industry, highlighting the company’s long-standing commitment to reinsurance and its combination of capital with deep risk expertise.

“Our capital, the Swiss Re capital, is committed to the industry for a very long time. It is here to do multi-line reinsurance. So, we do life and health and P&C, we do short tail and long tail,” the executive said.

“The core business proposition of our capital, the core mandate is on the right side of the balance sheet. So, we’re here to play to pay claims. That’s our main promise: paying claims,” Camara continued.

“And we issue this promise, bringing alongside capital, deep risk expertise that we have acquired over more than 100 years. And this deep risk expertise, in our view, is absolutely indispensable to arrange risk transfer in a sustainable way, to help mitigate the risk, to actually measure and quantify the risk, to develop new risk transfer approaches, and also to align alternative capital when this makes sense.

“So, this is our kind of capital. That’s the kind of capital we’re bringing to Baden-Baden, and we actually see that our capital is in high demand.”

On the demand side, Camara noted that Swiss Re was seeing increasing amounts of systemic risk, with exposures becoming more interconnected and therefore more systemic.

The executive identified four key factors driving this trend: larger individual risks, intensified geographic clustering, enhanced integration of supply chain networks, and growing digital and social networks that amplify risk propagation.

“Larger individual risks, the prime example that comes to mind are data centers, where we see insured value concentrations in excess of billions, sometimes even tens of billions, in very small, limited locations. So, increasing amounts of large risk concentration,” Camara added.

Going back to alternative capital, Camara highlighted during the Q&A portion of the briefing, that Swiss Re has a long-standing track record in the space, through the use of its third-party capital markets focused Alternative Capital Partners (ACP) division.

“Swiss Re has a long-standing track record in a unit called Alternative Capital Partners. So we’re quite used and experienced in also deploying that kind of capital or supporting that kind of capital with what we bring to the table to enable alternative capital to actually take on risk,” the executive said.

At the 2026 Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous de Septembre (RVS) reinsurance industry event, Urs Baertschi, Chief Executive Officer, of P&C Reinsurance, underscored the importance of the reinsurers Alternative Capital Partners division, whilst also stating that Swiss Re expects to continue to be a “meaningful participant in that market.”