Munich Re CEO: Reinsurance pricing is overall ‘very attractive’

Joachim Wenning, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, said this morning that overall, reinsurance prices remain very attractive, with the firm seeing enough attractive growth markets.

Alongside reporting its full year 2024 results, which were very strong once again, Munich Re provided an update on the January 1st, 2025, reinsurance renewals, when around two-thirds of the company’s non-life reinsurance treaty business was renewed.

Overall, the reinsurer pulled back slightly as the volume of business written declined by 2.4% year-on-year to €15.6 billion. The carrier explained that it “consistently discontinued business that did not meet our expectations with regard to prices or terms and conditions.”

In terms of price, Munich Re said that as development was stable, overall, the good price level of the reinsurer’s portfolio was maintained, with a slight decrease of 0.6%.

The reinsurer expects the environment to remain positive in the upcoming April and July renewals and noted that recent natural catastrophe events and subsequent losses, notably the Los Angeles wildfires, “are clearly impeding a softening of prices.”

Recently, during a media call discussing the results, the firm was questioned on reinsurance pricing and whether it has now peaked.

“An important first statement from me, is there is not one market and there is not two markets, there is multiple markets that we need to consider when talking about how attractive markets are, or they aren’t,” said Wenning. “So, geography wise, they are different. But then if you look into casualty, property, but within casualty, you look into corporate commercial business, you look into personal business, and some can be highly attractive at times, others can be still attractive, others can already be unattractive.”

It’s an important point, as much of the discussion around reinsurance pricing often focuses on property and property catastrophe business. But as Wenning stressed, there is not one market or one reinsurance price that is peaking or not peaking, it’s really multiple.

“In some (lines of business), the rates, after adjusted for risk, of course, and adjusted for new assumption with regard to future loss trends, and translated into margins, they have almost stayed stable just by adjusting our portfolio. That means there is enough attractive markets in which we can grow, which we maintain to maybe compensate those other markets which, over time, have become less attractive,” said Wenning.

“Overall, it’s very attractive. So, I cannot talk about reinsurance prices peaking or deteriorating or going further up,” he added.

Only time will tell how rates across the reinsurance sector trend at the future renewals, but it’s clear that insurers and reinsurers expect the huge California wildfire industry loss, currently pegged at between $35 billion and $50 billion, to have an impact on prices and also demand for coverage.

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