RVS Roundtable: The market’s in a decent position, but it’s at that pivotal point

Reinsurance News held its second Monte Carlo Roundtable at the 66th Rendez-Vous de Septembre last week, during which six experienced reinsurance industry executives debated a range of topics including property and casualty market conditions, structural changes, models, technology, cyber, and more.

Sponsored by reinsurance broker BMS Re and professional services firm, PwC, the executive roundtable event was our second in Monte Carlo and first since the global pandemic.

The discussion was extremely insightful and leaders from across the reinsurance industry touched on numerous burning issues as the market heads towards the key January 1 renewals.

“In terms of what’s going to evolve, I think everyone’s looking towards January 1. Obviously, it depends on whether there’s any activity between now and then, and it is very early days,” said Adam Mullan, Executive Chairman, BMS Re.

Commenting on the current rating environment, Mullan said that the market’s got itself into a decent position, with dedicated reinsurance capital poised to rise by around 9% in 2024 to $620 billion, absent any near-term losses.

“So, I think that just shows that the increased attachment points have really pushed us into a position where mid-size losses have been taken out of the property cat market, which is very, very beneficial,” continued Mullan.

On the casualty side, explained Mullan, there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

“This has become one of the big themes in Monte Carlo. Deterioration on the ‘17 to ‘19 years is looking fairly ugly. And actually, if you speak to people about the years ‘20 plus, the initial development also looks unfavorable. The numbers are not coming down, they are increasingly fast, and getting a reasonable actuarial perspective on development is tricky. I think the clever and more experienced markets can navigate their way through this environment, balanced portfolios (premium to limit), diversification and with smart capacity deployment.

“I think the market is generally in a really good spot, but it’s at that pivotal point. There is downward pressure on rates from clients. In the D&F insurance market, for example, the rates are caving quickly, particularly in London. So, you’ve got these pressure points coming and I think it will be interesting to watch how reinsurers react to this in the coming months,” said Mullan.

Matthew Britten, Partner at PwC Bermuda, highlighted some key themes in the market and throughout RVS 2024.

“One is, will reinsurers step back into providing more earnings protection? Will they provide more of those aggregate and sideways covers? Personally, I think the answer is probably going to be no.

“I think that they’ve seen their results and the positive impact that moving away from providing earnings protection has had on them, and investors are not going to be satisfied with one and a half years of good results, they’re going to want to see that persist into the future,” said Britten.

PwC’s Britten also commented on the casualty space, noting the significant concerns around adverse development on the liability side of the fence, absent workers’ comp, from the 2016 to 2019 years.

“But now I think in some of the auto lines in the more recent years, we’re seeing some adverse development there, and I think that’s getting people thinking about, okay, we have recognition that there’s been an increase in rate in the casualty lines, but has it been enough to actually rectify and get loss ratios to where they need to be? And there’s a big question around that at the moment,” said Britten.

Stay tuned as we’ll be releasing the full 2024 Reinsurance News Monte Carlo Executive Rendezvous Roundtable in the coming weeks, which will include more commentary from our sponsors and important insights from all of the other participants.

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