Monte Carlo Rendez-vous 2024: The hard market is over

Ian Summers, AdvantageGo’s Global Business Leader, shares key takeaways from this year’s reinsurance Rendez-vous de Septembre.

The umbrellas at Monaco’s Hôtel de Paris always used to boast the cheery motto, “It never rains in Monte Carlo.” Well, this year on the Sunday it did as some unsettling weather descended on the Riviera.

The bad weather might have served as metaphor for recent Rendez-vous de Septembres, where cedants found themselves without reinsurance cover for certain risks at the eleventh hour and had to stump up and pay the price.

Fast forward to 2024 and I’m happy to say that the bad weather didn’t last, and indeed nor have the difficult conditions for cedants. It has been abundantly clear from our many discussions this year that the hard market is over, and reinsurance capacity has returned to the table.

Without wishing to jinx matters, in the absence of a really severe loss event for the reinsurance market this year, all the signs are that we are heading for a flattening to moderate softening of rate and a more normalised market (at least for property players), which will be welcome news I’m sure for many of you after the bruising recent 1.1 treaty renewals experience.

Aside from the return to a more regularly functioning market, another fact has also become abundantly clear at this Rendez-vous: access to granular data for underwriters and an ability to present a real time overview of their portfolio exposures is now absolutely essential to ensure the optimal renewal.

Our Underwriting Workbench system is now firmly established as the market leading system in this regard, and we look forward to being at the heart of a market which continues to use technology to ensure that it remains a world leader in the assessment and management of complex risks.

For seven key takeaways, identified and explored in depth, check out the report, here – Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous Report 2024