Recently, Guy Carpenter issued a World Catastrophe Reinsurance Market report for 2010. The report noted that 2010 has been an exceptionally difficult year for the reinsurance industry noting the Chilean Earthquake and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill as particularly costly events. However, even with such events (and an active hurricane season approaching), reinsurance costs declined in 2010 roughly 6%, and the reinsurance market was overcapitalized by 8%. Thus, while the market has been able to cope with the disasters of 2010, a difficult second half of the year could bring about a significant change in the market. The outlook for the catastrophe bond market is similarly dependent on the second half of 2010.
The Reinsurance Association of America also recently released a comprehensive summary of the 2009 data for underwriting and operating results of major property/casualty reinsurers and the US reinsurance market (available for purchase on the RAA’s web site). The RAA also published a survey of the first six months of 2010 underwriting results.
This post written by John Black.