Reaching new heights

Ceding Company Perspective

Contents

• Motivation for buying• Structures• Relationships matter• Increased Expectations of Brokers• Educating Internal Constituents• Tradeoffs• Data

• Reduce Risk of Ruin• Stabilization of LR• Meet regulatory Requirements• Rating Agency Concerns• Large line capacity• UW help

– Product/price– Audits– Feedback on certain classes of business or new states– Training

• Claims help on large losses• Financing (Surplus relief)

Motivation For Buying

Possible Reinsurance Structure

• Property Catastrophe• Working Layer• Umbrella• Fac• Quota Share• Aggregate Stop-Loss

Relationships Matter

• Better advice and service from intermediaries if they know you well.

• Pay more for “carve out” if “value-added” services are worth it.

• Property Cat, Working Layer Negotiations– Pricing differentials - important– Capacity (next hard market) - priceless!

Carving out…

Better to include umbrella in casualty/clash treaty, or carve out?

• Save $ this year?• Risk “mucking up” experience rating on

your casualty treaty?• Value-added services?• Balance relationships?• How soft is the market currently?

Carve out Umbrella?What if your umbrella reinsurer provided…• Great sounding board for UW’s on day-to-day account

discussions• Help with UW audits• Training sessions for new underwriters• “Advanced Topic” training• Speakers for UW Conference• Research for new state expansion

Would you still want to put your umbrella in your casualty treaty?

Relationships Matter

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

- William Shakespeare

What we look for in a broker

“Any chimp can place reinsurance”

Increased Broker Expectations

• Cat, Terrorism, WC modeling• Rating agency advisory• ERM• Contract wording • Claims• Market Security analysis• Competitive intelligence / Research• Expansion ideas

Need to Educate

• How involved is Sr. Management and/or the Board?

• Risk of ceding too much– Cede too much profit to avoid volatility– In reinsurers’ (and brokers’) best interest to

share worst case scenarios since reinsurance is a “fear-based buy”

• Risk of not ceding enough

Tradeoffs

• “Don’t cede too much of our profit, but smooth out the volatility.”

• “We want higher rated markets on our program…but don’t want to pay more.”

Data"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

-- Albert Einstein

What companies hope reinsurance u/w’s remember:

Ask good questions to assess our true risks, but...

• Differentiate between different types of companies.

• Give my companies’ experience enough weight.

• Understand the law of diminishing returns.

• Use common sense.

Reaching new heights

Thank you - End Slide