One of the themes at this year’s reinsurance Rendez-Vous de Septembre (RVS) was that reinsurers have rediscovered client need, client interest and have again started to put clients at the center of conversations, according to Dirk Spenner, managing director at Gallagher Re, EMEA.
On the other hand, the big theme of last year’s RVS was that reinsurers had put their interests at the center of the conversations, Spenner said. “I need this, I want that. I can’t do that anymore, and these are my rules,” he said in a recollection of talks with reinsurers during the 2022 RVS.
“[L]ast year it seemed like ‘cat’ was the bad word of the market, he said, during an interview at this year’s RVS in Monte Carlo. “And if you just said, ‘I’ve got some cat business for you,’ they put the phone down on you. So that’s clearly changed.”
Dirk Spenner
The main change from October, November, and December of last year is that the reinsurers now have a much better idea about their risk appetite, he explained. “They provided a commitment to provide quotes, which again, wasn’t necessarily the case last year.”
Reinsurers have greater confidence to provide a clear commitment of capacity “and they’ve defined where they want to play and what’s off limit,” Spenner said. “And so I think overall that will very likely lea