The Reinsurance Podcast

Europe’s MGAs are evolving from distribution channels into sophisticated underwriting businesses. Magnus Heimann, Head of MGA Europe at Augment Risk, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to discuss why that shift is attracting new sources of capital. They explore how underwriting expertise, real-time data and operational capability can build confidence among capacity providers, alongside the growth of sp...

A quiet hurricane season can tell you less about risk than you think. Bernhard Reinhardt, Vice President of Catastrophe and Risk Solutions at Verisk, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to explain why similar loss outcomes can have very different meteorological causes. They discuss how El Niño can redistribute risk between regions, why catastrophe models need a consistent view of atmospheric conditions,...

A reinsurance programme that can be placed today is not necessarily a sustainable solution for the years ahead. Charlie Bartlett, Head of P&C North, Central & Eastern Europe at SCOR, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to discuss what cedents need from their reinsurers as the market softens. They explore the protection gap left by the 2023 market reset, growing interest in parametric cover, and...

A softer market could give reinsurance buyers a reason to think beyond their next annual renewal. Kirill Savrassov, CEO of Phoenix CRetro and convenor of The Fundamentals of ILS, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to discuss the growing role of insurance-linked securities. They explore what investors learn from a falling market, why data centres could open a new chapter for ILS, and the appeal of multi...

Credit is attracting new insurers, MGAs and reinsurers, while banks are looking for capital relief and room to grow. Alexander Georgetti, Gallagher Re’s Executive Director for Global Credit, Surety and Political Risk, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to discuss what is driving demand and where exposures can accumulate. They explore data-centre growth, sovereign debt, specialist underwriting and AI’s...

Wording intended to affirm AI cover can inadvertently restrict it. Jen Braney, Gallagher Re’s Head of International Cyber, joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to explore where cyber protection ends and AI liability begins. They discuss why data-centre exposures need to be measured before they can be reinsured, how digital risks cut across traditional insurance classes, and why coordination matters as mu...

Reinsurance prices are falling, but David Flandro argues that rising capital costs should give buyers pause. Howden Re’s Head of Industry Analysis and Strategic Advisory joins Ben Rose in Baden-Baden to explain why cedents need a contingency plan, how new sources of capital are reshaping the market, and what economic margins reveal about the cycle. They also explore AI’s potential to change modell...

Dame Susan Langley, the first Lady Mayor of the City of London in 800 years and only the third woman to hold the office, has spent a year flying round the world telling people what London’s insurance and reinsurance market actually does. Recorded at Mansion House, this is her case for why the quietest industry in finance needs to find its voice. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: What the Lady Mayor’s job actuall...

Sub-$50bn of first-half cat losses, no hurricanes last year, none so far this year, and rates heading south. Verisk's Rob Newbold boards the TRP yacht at Monte Carlo RVS to explain why reinsurance should still be braced for $171bn of insured catastrophe loss in an average year. Then he gets into what AI is actually doing to cat modelling, from globally correlated models to agents that talk to each...

New capital is still queuing up for Lloyd's, but Argenta's Kate Tongue and Robert Flach reckon the smart money is taking its time. On board the Supercede yacht at Monte Carlo RVS, they explain three things: why investors tend to show up a year too late, why a diversified Lloyd's portfolio can rival ILS returns with less risk, and why capital cares less about a syndicate's AI than a...

Property is softening at a sprint. Casualty is walking, and keeping one eye on US social inflation. On the TRP yacht at Monte Carlo RVS 2026, Lockton Re's Carla Moffett and Sam Sweeney explain why casualty reinsurance won't follow the rest of the market down, and why the brokers worth hiring now do much more than place the treaty. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why casualty capacity is plentiful but pricing i...

Rachel Turk, Chief of Performance and Strategy at Lloyd's, explains why the flood of third-party capital is good news only while there's fresh risk for it to chase, and why institutional money might one day walk for reasons that have nothing to do with the insurance cycle. Plus: data centres that want $20bn of cover but not the bill, and why agentic AI underwriting only works if it explain...

Two years ago Oak Global didn't exist. It now writes over $900m of income across two Lloyd's syndicates, posted an 84% combined ratio in its first year, and did it all in a reinsurance market that had already peaked. Cathal Carr, Founder & CEO, joins Ben at Monte Carlo RVS to explain why there's no perfect time to launch a reinsurer, only a proposition good enough to outlast the cy...

Sarah Wilson, Head of Outwards Reinsurance at MS Amlin, would rather know who'll still be on her panel when it isn't. Recorded in Monte Carlo in heat that could poach an egg, this is a cedent's case for picking reinsurance partners for the full cycle, not just the 1/1 renewals. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why a cedent in a soft market still picks reinsurers for the long haul rather than the...

Paolo Mantero, Group Head of Reinsurance at Zurich, spent his first RVS arguing it's the least useful conversation in the room. On the Reinsurance Podcast yacht, he makes the case for data centres, AI and climate risk instead, and explains why cedents who sit out the new economy lose the right to be heard. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why insurers risk irrelevance if they can't serve the fastest...

Two years of AI proofs of concept have left reinsurance with a mild hangover and a nagging suspicion that none of it was real. Céline Thierry, Senior Director, Reinsurance at Duck Creek, joins us at Monte Carlo RVS to explain why this year feels more grounded. The industry is spending less time on AI as a big idea and more on where it gives underwriting and reinsurance experts room to do the work...

Yassir Albaharna has been coming to Monte Carlo for almost 37 years, back when meetings lasted an hour and M&A hadn't yet thinned out the receptions. On the TRP yacht at RVS, the Group CEO of Trust Re explains why the Gulf's political violence losses are colliding with a soft reinsurance market. Also why cedents across the Middle East are finding their exposures outgrew their protectio...

Richard Dudley, CEO of UK & International Reinsurance at BMS, joins us on The Reinsurance Podcast yacht in Monaco to explain why handing 40 years of US treaty reinsurance history to Willis was the right call, then takes on climate, sanctions and where AI genuinely helps in reinsurance today. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: - Why BMS sold its US treaty reinsurance business to Willis, and why losing 15%...

Caroline Wagstaff runs London Matters, the report that tells the London market what it's actually worth, and this year the real story sits under the topline numbers. 24% of the London reinsurance market is under 30 today; in a decade, that's projected to fall to 7%, and nobody can agree whether AI or the pricing cycle is to blame. She joined us on the TRP yacht in Monte Carlo to unpack bot...

Mikir Shah, CEO of developing-markets reinsurer Africa Specialty Risks, built AI into the whole underwriting engine instead: quote to bind, no manual data entry. Then he paused it anyway, just to check the machine's doing what it's meant to. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why building AI into every underwriting step, not just the easy bits, changes what the job actually looks like How a cyclone cl...

Emily Davis, Head of Global Specialty at Everest, is more interested in everything plugged into data centres. Recorded on the TRP yacht, this one is about the specialty reinsurance growth story behind the build-out: semiconductor plants, EV factories, onshored manufacturing, and a renewable energy project bolted onto every new server farm. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why the data centre itself is only...

Christa Schwimmer, Chief Executive for Specialty, Lloyd's and Bermuda at Munich Re, joins us on the yacht at Monte Carlo 2026 to talk about what cedents actually value, why she's unconvinced by the data centre gold rush, and where AI insurance sits on the curve cyber climbed fifteen years ago. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why a reinsurer's survey scores track predictability and reliable capa...

Everyone at Monte Carlo agrees the market is flush. Sebastian Cook, CEO, UK at Howden Re, reckons the abundant capital is the easy bit; the skill is matching it to a client problem worth solving. He joins us on the yacht to explain how the reinsurance conversation moved from the price of a programme to off-balance-sheet capital, and why nobody in the market, his own firm included, has the industri...

Everyone's calling this a soft market. Dirk Spenner, CEO International at Gallagher Re, thinks that's the boring way to read it. He sat down with us on a boat in Monaco to make the case that record capital isn't really a price story — it's an optionality story, and most buyers are about to waste it exactly like they wasted the last one. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why most clients pocke...

Everyone at Monte Carlo this year agreed the market's calm. Laurent Montador, Deputy CEO of Arundo Re, thinks that's exactly the problem. He joins The Reinsurance Podcast to explain why three straight years of softening, wildfires spreading from Los Angeles to the south of France, and a jittery bond market might be quietly setting up the next hard cycle. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why discipli...