The hard market is not necessarily over, but most of the work of repricing has been done and the market is talking more about maintaining discipline, Shaun Barrington, CEO of UIB UK, commented speaking with Reinsurance News at the RVS 2023 Monte Carlo event.
He said: “I believe that the renewal season may be different for different geographies. Although it’s too early to put a definitive on that, it seems to me that the difference in economic landscapes around the world will play its part and the tragic events this week in both Morocco and Libya will also play their parts in that region.
“The hard market is not necessarily over, but I think I heard that most of the work of repricing was done over the past two years and the market is talking more about maintaining discipline rather than about the market hardening.”
There are still two more months to run of the North American CAT season – which always, depending how it goes, will play its part on the renewal season – but Barrington remains hopeful that, as long as no major events take place, then maybe clients will get a better result on 1:1.
He concluded: “At the moment, there’s an interesting play on capacity. There’s clearly not a huge number of new entrants into the market, which is unusual following a hard market.
“Normally, when you have a hard market for a couple of years, you get new capacity coming in, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. On the other hand there is clearly still a good amount of capacity rather than a shortage.”
