Reinsurance renewals news

Following a mixed pricing environment at the January 1st, 2025, reinsurance renewals, analysts at Moody’s anticipate property catastrophe reinsurance pricing to stabilise somewhat at the upcoming US mid-year renewals, driven by the impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the more recent California wildfires.

Over the last few years, there has been a significant shift in sentiment among mainstream media and politicians, who cite the cost of reinsurance coverage as a key driver of the escalating cost of property insurance in the United States and nowhere has this been more apparent than in Florida.

Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state’s insurer of last resort, is aiming to purchase $2.94 billion of new traditional reinsurance and catastrophe bonds for the 2025 hurricane season, which would take its total risk transfer to $4.54 billion this year.

Third-party capital in the reinsurance market reached record highs in 2024, as broker Guy Carpenter, alongside rating agency AM Best estimated that it reached a substantial $107 billion at year-end, however, a key driver of the increase is the continued growth of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, which is the major component of third-party capital […]

Paul Gregory, Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO) of insurance and reinsurance firm Lancashire Holdings Limited, has revealed that the company wrote a smaller retro book at the January 1st 2025 reinsurance renewals, which according to the CUO, resulted in a marginally better outcome for the organisation.

If the mid-year 2025 reinsurance renewals see relatively flat pricing, commentary from the recent AIFA conference by analysts at Autonomous Research suggests this could be a catalyst for more capital coming off the sidelines and into the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

Bermuda-based Lancashire Holdings Limited has reported that losses from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires have eroded “a good portion” of the annual deductible of the organisation’s aggregate reinsurance cover, but the company has plenty of limit available for the rest of the year, according to Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO) Paul Gregory.

Following the annual AIFA conference held in Florida this week, equity analysts noted mixed views on the mid-year renewal outlook for property catastrophe reinsurance rates. Pricing in upper-layers of reinsurance towers is expected to see the greatest competition, but there are no signs of overly aggressive behaviour at this stage.

Speaking during Hiscox’s full-year 2024 earnings call, Joanne Musselle, Group Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO), said the company made significant savings on its retrocession placement at the 1/1 renewals, then allocated some of those savings to support its recent $200 million Ocelot Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond.

UK government backed mutual terrorism reinsurance firm Pool Re has secured another increase in size to its retrocession program, lifting it by 15% from £2.4 billion to £2.75 billion at the latest renewal, while our sources suggest that a new vintage of the Baltic terrorism catastrophe bond is expected to add to this.