Universal finalises reinsurance renewal, locks in $352m of additional multi-year cover: CEO

Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc. has now fully-placed its catastrophe reinsurance for the coming year and has secured a further $352 million of multi-year cover to extend its catastrophe protection, with the firm’s CEO Stephen Donaghy saying he was pleased with the market support.

Universal Insurance Holdings has always been an early mover when it comes to locking-in all-important catastrophe reinsurance protection well in advance of the hurricane season.

Back in February, CEO Stephen Donaghy said that Universal had already placed around 90% of its first-event catastrophe reinsurance tower and was set to add multi-year cover to protect it into the 2027 hurricane season as well.

Now, in announcing its first-quarter 2026 results, Donaghy explained, “I’m pleased to announce the completion of our 2026-2027 reinsurance renewal for our insurance entities, as our program is now fully supported and secured. During the renewal process in 2026, we also secured $352 million of additional multi-year coverage, taking us through the 2027-2028 treaty period.”

During an earnings call held in the last couple of hours today, Donaghy further said, “From the reinsurance perspective, we are very excited to be done and have it fully secured for 2026/2027. We are happy that we also extended our multi-year agreements.”

He continued, “From a pricing perspective, we’re going to sit on that until we get to May and release all the details as normal. We think it’d be premature for us to make public comments relative to how we did.”

Donaghy further stated, “We were very pleased with the market and very pleased with our partners of many, many years and how they treated us this year.”

Universal CFO Frank Wilcox provided a little more colour on the earnings call, saying that the reinsurance tower renewed is substantially the same as the prior year.

“The retentions will remain the same for the insurance entities, $45 million. We plan to continue to use the captive in the same manner for the $66 million layer above $45 million for the first event. So structurally identical to last year,” Wilcox explained.

Remember that, for its 2025 reinsurance tower, Universal purchased $110 million more in reinsurance limit taking the top of the reinsurance tower for its subsidiaries to $2.526 billion, while ILS manager Nephila Capital was once again cited as a key counterpart.

Universal has repeatedly highlighted Nephila and other collateralized markets as key components of its reinsurance tower for some years, appreciating the efficient capacity it can source from capital market investors.