10 July 2015 News

Price declines continue to moderate: Guy Carp

Overall pricing was down at the July reinsurance renewals, however additional limit placed over the past few months drove a moderation in rate declines.

This is according to Guy Carpenter, which explained that price declines continued to moderate, predominately on programmes covering US wind.

“In July, for the first time over the last three renewal seasons, many markets were in a position of dwindling aggregate for US wind-exposed zones,” said the broker.

Guy Carpenter explained that additional limit placed over the past few months is partially responsible for the stabilisation of price declines, particularly for US property.

Since spring 2014, demand for worldwide property catastrophe coverage has continued to grow at 8 percent based on current analysis. This is primarily due to new entities purchasing coverage and companies using a portion of their savings to enhance coverage, fill in gaps or to provide additional coverage as they expand their business.

It added that increased demand for reinsurance and expansion of tailored coverage persisted through the July renewal period from previous seasons.

Lara Mowery, managing director and head of global property specialty for Guy Carpenter, said: “It was hard to imagine based on the two previous years that we would hear a reinsurer reference lack of capacity as a reason for cutting back on a programme, but this did occur at times this June and July.

“There is certainly no capacity shortage overall and reinsurance capital has grown once again. However, the combination of a significant increase in limit purchased and margins that have continued to thin, created a dampening on the market’s response to additional rate pressure, particularly with regard to US wind.”

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