catastrophe reinsurance

Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re estimates that the US catastrophe reinsurance market sees approximately $200 billion in demand currently, but says that this is expected to grow by as much as 15% by 2024.

The era of catastrophe-focused traditional reinsurers appears to be over, rating agency AM Best announced today, as the pulling-back continues in some quarters, while the addition of more diversifying lines of business accelerates among once cat-specialist US and Bermuda based reinsurance firms.

Speaking at a recent analyst conference, Swiss Re’s Group Chief Underwriting Officer Thierry Léger explained that pricing is now hard in the natural catastrophe reinsurance space, but that further rate hardening is also expected.

Neil Eckert, Chairman of Conduit Re, a reinsurance company that started-up just over a year ago, believes that there could be some shortages in catastrophe capacity as 2022 progresses, which may provide attractive opportunities.

In spite of a challenging few years for both managers and investors from across the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, the Co-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Markel Corporation, Richie Whitt, remains optimistic on the future of the market.

Placing ILS fund manager Nephila Capital as the single point of entry to the property catastrophe reinsurance market for Markel Corporation is seen as a “cleaner option” for the company and also a way of generating operational efficiencies, Markel senior executives said yesterday.

Nephila Capital is set to become the single point of entry for Markel to access property catastrophe reinsurance, as the company shutters its Markel Global Reinsurance property CAT unit and creates a centre of excellence for catastrophe risk under the ILS fund manager.

A number of syndicates operating at Lloyd’s have stepped up at the renewals of Florida catastrophe reinsurance to increase their share of program layers and ramp up line sizes, all at a time when the Corporation itself is maintaining a focus on minimising or moderating cat exposure across its marketplace members.

Property casualty insurance holding company United Insurance Holdings Corp. (also known as UPC Insurance) has swapped its per-occurrence catastrophe reinsurance program for a new one-year new aggregate excess of loss reinsurance program, at the January renewals.

Greenlight Re, the Cayman Islands domiciled, hedge fund strategy reinsurance firm backed by David Einhorn and his Greenlight Capital, Inc. hedge fund, has slashed its premiums written again in the last quarter as it declined to renew business deemed unprofitable.