Swiss Re is expecting reinsurance renewal rates to remain “broadly stable” given the current level of competition in the market environment, according to Christian Mumenthaler, Swiss Re’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Speaking in an interview with Reinsurance News, Mumenthaler said: “After many years of price erosion in major non-life insurance markets, this year we’ve seen some improvements in both our Reinsurance and Corporate Solutions businesses. That’s encouraging, certainly better than a year ago, but markets need to improve more to deliver sustainable returns.”
He explained that market conditions are expected to remain competitive due to the abundance of capital, with rates likely to remain flat provided no major loss event takes place.
“Our focus, especially in such market conditions, remains on our clients and on providing them with the required capacity, expertise and innovative solutions,” Mumenthaler added. “This provides some insulation to the market dynamics.”
Swiss Re reported a solid set of results for the first half of 2018 despite the difficult environment in Property & Casualty business, recording Group net income of US $1.0 billion.
Mumenthaler told Reinsurance News that he was “satisfied with our performance so far,” and said that the company’s results showed “a material improvement in earnings quality and a strong underwriting performance.”
“Excluding the impact of US GAAP accounting changes which came into effect at the start of the year, our Group net income would have matched last year’s first half results,” he explained. “We also grew in the first half of 2018, particularly driven by our Life & Health business and Corporate Solutions.”
