Opinion

The carrier has shared insurance and reinsurance risk with ILS partners in the past, but the ILS team reports to Axis Re CEO Steve Arora.

In certain areas more collaboration is needed but in others the market will continue to get more diverse as investors respond to post-Irma challenges in differing ways.

Even though underlying ILS market conditions are improving, getting a hearing from investors could become harder.

Catastrophe reinsurers are already off to a messy start for the year and may have eroded a significant part of their year-to-date Q1 cat budgets as floods are still unfolding in Australia following recent European/UK windstorms.

Absent more significant reform, any changes this year look set to simply shift the timing of burdens falling on the public purse.

Many investors are in a “hold and assess” pattern on ILS, but some changes in the broader landscape could be more positive for the industry.

Greater participation of cat bond investors in the retro market has some advantages alongside the risks.

The “squeezed middle” of the reinsurance sector is under pressure, but attritional risk aversion could drive ongoing changes.

Cat risk-takers are benefitting from some money leaving the sector, but is this disruption creating inefficiencies as well?

This year, instead of talk about running late, people were highlighting how the starting gun has barely been fired.

The retro renewals are barely underway, as a challenging fundraising environment and queries over loss experience has delayed the typical pace of progress.

Re-allocation of capital rather than true growth seems to be a more likely outcome for the sector in the near term.