Chris Klein, Guy Carpenter’s Head of Business Intelligence, reviews the dramatic change and improvement in reinsurers’ fortunes following the global financial crisis. He reviews the year- end 2009 earnings results of the Guy Carpenter Bermuda Reinsurance Composite. He also reviews the primary drivers for capital decline and then growth among those reinsurers in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The impact of capital growth on capacity is also discussed.

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Catastrophe reinsurance rates declined for the second year in a row. Price competition intensified as a result of abundant capital, lower than average catastrophe losses, and strong overall profitability. But, reinsurance rates are projected to decrease at a slower pace in 2009 than in 2008, as reinsurers face earnings pressure from a number of sources.

According to the Guy Carpenter World Rate on Line (ROL) Index, rates declined by 10 percent on average in 2008. This compares to a 6 percent drop in property-catastrophe ROL for the same period in 2007.

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