David Benyon, editor

TO SERVE A TRANSFORMING MARKET

So much about the reinsurance market is in flux right now, which is making it an exciting place to be, and adding to the need for insights, thought leadership and market intelligence. GR has changed, too, covering the big events, interviews and trends in this market, providing trusted news and insights for the sector.

Most obviously, there’s the market cycle, decisively turned at recent renewals, creating hard market conditions of rising rates, tighter wordings, and constrained capacity available for buyers. This keeps broker skills sharp and is providing great opportunities for underwriters. With higher attachments and reinsurers posting strong figures, the sector has some good performance prospects. Whether we see the search for profitable growth become an influx of capacity and new entrants, or the constraints of a sellers’ market continue, we’ve reached a fascinating juncture in 2024.

New challengers are already locking horns with traditional ways of doing things in this industry. This can mean new business hubs, such as in Dubai or Singapore, and new ways for startups to challenge the status quo, such as via insurtech-led MGAs that make use of state-of-the-art technology to underwrite in news ways, linking risk with capital more efficiently.

Then there’s the technological transformation, which can only accelerate due to the greater potential being unlocked by insurtech and emerging technologies, and artificial intelligence in particular, promising to unlock value and efficiency from everything from underwriting insights to managing claims and modelling emerging risks.

And, of course, there are the volatile risks themselves, continuing to create the uncertainty giving investors pause for thought, putting a premium on quality underwriting. The emerging risk landscape continues to shift, with extreme weather and climate change buffeting key markets like Florida and California, to geopolitical turmoil around the globe, to shadowy, less understood threats, such as systemic cyber risk.

GR is also tilting the ways it serves the re/insurance market. This means a couple of different things. Firstly, there are more big interviews to provide comment from key figures in the sector, bringing personality, insight and fresh perspectives to this beguiling new market environment. We will doing this through an expanded 2024 Annual Edition published for the Monte Carlo rendezvous and subsequent coverage, and will prioritise interview content with industry thought leaders in 2024.