The movement of third-party capital into the reinsurance space was a constant theme of a recent seminar during which A.M. Best SVP Matt Mosher predicted that reinsurers will ultimately evolve into simply being sources of business for the capital markets.
Another highlight of the Casualty Actuarial Society’s Seminar on Reinsurance was a debate between Mosher and investment analysts about risk taking and risk aversion in the industry. See related article, “Analysts Debate: Are Insurers, Reinsurers Too Risk Averse?“ Right now, he said, traditional reinsurers, which are all essentially on solid footing in terms of their capital positions from a rating agency perspective, are being distinguished by A.M. Best in terms of their business profiles, their future earnings potential and the level of underwriting talent they bring to the table. Speaking at the Casualty Actuarial Society’s Seminar on Reinsurance, Mosher, Meyer Shields of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and Alan Zimmermann of Assured Research said underwriting and management talent are key as property-catastrophe reinsurers follow the road that Berkshire Hathaway started paving last year—away from property reinsurance and into specialty casualty insurance lines.