Solvency management provides reinsurance opportunity

Testing economic conditions have prompted widespread moves by life insurers to reinsure their liabilities in order to gain capital relief. As the situation eases, will demand for reinsurance fall, or are other factors coming to prominence? Blake Evans-Pritchard reports

With limited exposure to the riskier side of the capital markets, life reinsurers have been shielded to some degree from the worst of the financial crisis. This has led to the widespread perception of the reinsurance industry as an island of stability in what are still fairly turbulent waters.

“Reinsurers have weathered the financial storm relatively well,” says Wolf Becke, chief executive officer of Hannover Life Re, the life arm of the German reinsurer, which has €42 billion (£37 billion)