catastrophe reinsurance

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.

It may come as a bit of a surprise, but some reinsurance companies aren’t pulling back on underwriting U.S. catastrophe reinsurance business, as the margins available continue to be attractive to firms for which the hurdle rate is sufficient to meet cost-of-capital.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Amer Ahmed the CEO of Allianz Re said that some reinsurance rates are reaching unsustainable levels which, if prices continue to decline, may cause his firm to buy more reinsurance and sell less.

Primary insurer State Auto Financial Corporation has replaced its quota-share catastrophe reinsurance for a new aggregate cover featuring PCS catastrophe designation, a good example of a traditional reinsurance product that is similar to a capital market one.

Countries across Asia continue to develop, or pursue the development of, functioning catastrophe insurance and reinsurance markets, which is a positive sign for global reinsurers and the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

Greenlight Re, the Cayman Islands domiciled, hedge fund manager David Einhorn and Greenlight Capital, Inc. backed reinsurance firm, has continued its approach of non-renewing contracts which it felt were mispriced at recent renewals.

It is the turn of the largest reinsurance companies in the world to announce their results this week, beginning with global reinsurer Swiss Re who today reported quarterly results which, while missing analysts expectations, showed a change in strategy.

Bermuda-based reinsurer and third-party reinsurance capital management specialist RenaissanceRe is not actively looking for new third-party investors in the current reinsurance market environment, according to CEO Kevin O’Donnell.

Greenlight Re, the Cayman Islands domiciled, hedge fund manager David Einhorn and Greenlight Capital, Inc. backed reinsurance firm, has pulled back from some of its catastrophe retrocession business this year citing low pricing and competition.

Kevin O’Donnell, President and CEO of Bermuda-based reinsurer and third-party capital management specialist RenaissanceRe, said that at a macro level there is evidence of discipline being lost and risk being priced inadequately in the reinsurance market.