US property cat reinsurance rates to stabilise at mid-year renewals: Moody’s

After an overall mixed pricing picture at the January 1st, 2025, reinsurance renewals, the impacts of Hurricanes Helen and Milton and the costly California wildfires, analysts at Moody’s expect property cat reinsurance pricing to stabilise at the upcoming US-focused mid-year renewal rounds.

As highlighted by Moody’s in a recent note, several reinsurance brokers and European carriers have provided updates on their experience at the 1.1 2025 renewals, when typically between 40% and 60% of a global reinsurer’s portfolio is renewed, including much of the European business.

Of the big four European reinsurers, all but Munich Re (decline driven by underwriting actions) recorded premium growth at Jan 1st as companies looked to deploy capital in a still-attractive pricing environment, albeit softer than a year earlier at the 1.1 2024 renewals.

“Pricing across the portfolios of these European reinsurers was generally flat, ranging from a -2.1% decrease reported by Hannover Re to a 2.8% overall increase reported by Swiss Re. For its non-proportional business, SCOR reported the first pricing decease (-0.8%) since the January 2017 renewal,” explains Moody’s.

As reported by reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, the key US property catastrophe reinsurance segment saw an overall rate decline of 6.2% at 1.1 2025, the first dip since 2017.

“Generally, pricing was largely stable in working layers – the lower levels of reinsurance used for more frequent and smaller claims. However, pricing was lower at the top end of reinsurance programs where there was plenty of capacity available for coverage of less frequent and larger claims, for which pricing remains attractive on a risk-adjusted basis,” notes Moody’s.

Now, the focus shifts to the mid-year reinsurance renewals, which are heavily focused on the US, which has experienced some heavy loss activity in recent months.

“The upcoming midyear 2025 reinsurance renewals, which focus on the US, will be influenced by large US catastrophe loss events over the past year, particularly Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the Los Angeles wildfires, which are likely to provide support to reinsurance pricing for US exposures,” says Moody’s.

Adding, “Because many renewing US accounts have experienced losses from Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the recent wildfires in California, we think it is likely that US property catastrophe reinsurance pricing will stabilize, supported by the potential for significant price increases for accounts that have had sizeable losses over the past year.”

This website states: The content on this site is sourced from the internet. If there is any infringement, please contact us and we will handle it promptly.