Baden-Baden Reinsurance 2020 officially cancelled amid COVID-19 fears

Baden-Baden Reinsurance Meeting 2020, one of the key re/insurance events globally, has followed the  Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous and become the latest organiser to officially cancel the event this year due to COVID-19 concerns.

The event was scheduled to be held for October 18 to 22, 2020 in Germany. The next edition will now be held from October 17 to 21, 2021.

Re/insurance professionals from all over the world usually attend this event, which provides an opportunity for cedants, brokers and re/insurers to get together to discuss the renewal of reinsurance contracts prior to the major renewals season in January.

The organisers stated that the decision has been taken after due consideration of "all possibilities of different event concepts - from hybrid to purely digital".

"However, we are not only confronted with the current travel restrictions in many key countries, which we could have solved digitally - the current corporate policy guidelines of European participants which completely prohibit on-site meetings and business trips, are also playing an increasingly important role. Moreover, since many of you have already been forced to completely shift this year's discussions to other communication channels, we consider holding a purely digital event would not be reasonable," Baden-Baden organisers said in a statement.

"In the course of last few days, we have received decisive information from your midst indicating that holding the meeting in Baden-Baden this year cannot be of success. This unfortunately forces us to cancel the meeting officially today," said the announcement.

Monte Carlo Reinsurance Rendez-Vous 2020 has been taken off the agenda, while The American Property Casualty Insurance Association's (APCIA) annual conference has been moved online this year. Meanwhile, the organising committee of SIRC has announced that it will decide by 1st September if this year's event will go ahead as scheduled or not.