Briefing: Insurers hope reinsurers do not break the bank in Monte Carlo

By Jon Guy

In a week which has been defined by the UK’s air traffic control crisis, the thoughts of the UK insurance industry are also turning to the potential problems looming in warmer climes.

The Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous will begin later this month (9 September 2023) and over five days reinsurers will undertake what is best described as a frenetic round of speed dating.

This includes a series of 30 minute meetings with brokers and clients, in which they will spell out their approach to the vital reinsurance renewals next year (1 January 2024).

The event has been going for almost 50 years and defines the insurance industry’s access to reinsurance, and with it, the pricing of primary risks.

Behind the glamorous location, the view of many heading to the event is that this year it will be a case of the two c’s – climate and cyber – amid concerns reinsurers’ appetites for the risks will have changed in the past 12 months.

In 2022, the major reinsurers shocked many when they drew a line over their participation in some of the more extreme weather events, leaving insurers with some tough choices on their commitment to risks given much of their reinsurance safety net had been removed.

The impact of severe weather events has also increased in 2023, with secondary perils such as wildfires now becoming a source of significant claims, which may well have the reinsurance sector thinking long and hard over their willingness to reinsure the risks.

Reinsurers also left many marine insurers all at sea with their refusal to support war risks in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which stranded vessels in the country’s ports for over a year.

Cyber

Away from climate and natural perils, there has been an increase in demand for cyber risk.

However, the invasion of Ukraine has seen a leap in the number of state-backed cyber-attacks, which will test the reinsurance sector’s mettle.

This is because at present, almost 50% of cyber risks underwritten by insurers are assumed by reinsurers under quota share agreements.

There are some who believe that the Rendez-Vous will see reinsurers looking to reduce their exposure and increase the price of the capacity they will commit.

Stance

In the past 25 years, there had long been a view from brokers that reinsurers would talk tough in Monaco, but when it came to the detailed negotiations in the run up to January, that determination would falter.

However, the past two years has been a very different story, one defined by reinsurance brokers admitting that some risks would require capital-market solutions to fill the shortfall of the available capacity.

A similarly inflexible stance from reinsurers will pose some tough questions for insurers around the lines they write, the exposures they assume and the price they will charge.