Description: In May of 2006 the Life Insurance Mortality and Underwriting Survey Committee of the SOA surveyed both reinsurers and direct companies about their practices with respect to making business decisions in the underwriting process. This article highlights the comparison of the results of the two surveys.

Description: Discussion of the evolving role of reinsurance in driving business decisions for the direct side, with particular emphasis on underwriting and risk classification and the emphasis on automatic versus facultative business.

Description: The main purpose of “excess reinsurance” was to enable the direct writer to retain as much face amount as it could justify and merely cede the amounts which it felt was excessive relative to its surplus, earnings or other financial criteria.

Description: This article presents the author's views on how direct writers of term insurance should view and monitor their reinsurance.

Description: Significant consolidation has occurred in the U.S. reinsurance market over the last five years. The number of companies operating in ordinary life reinsurance has continued to decline—13 primary companies excluding retrocessionaires contributing to the Munich American Reassurance Survey in 2004, compared to 20 companies in 1999. Table 1 and Table 2 indicate the change in market share as well as the change in the composition of the leading participants in the U.S. market for 2004 versus 1999.

Description: Insurance companies significantly expanded their use of life reinsurance throughout the late '90s and early '00s. This has meant that volumes being ceded to the reinsurance market have continued to expand after a brief respite in 2001 through quota share opportunities with direct insurers keeping only a portion of their published retention.

Description: This article summarizes insights from a 2021 survey of more than 40 life insurance companies with a focus on trends in reinsurand and in-force management. While reinsurance objectives and methods have remained steadfast in a sea of economic and regulatory impacts, life companies still are looking at different solutions to make improvements in profitability, stability, and scale.

Description: The first of two parts of a roundtable discussion, by conference call, on the state of life reinsurance today in North America.

Description: Highlight the global life reinsurance industry market size, key players and trends impacting the industry, globally and from a high level regional overview.

Description: Insurers buy reinsurance for a variety of reasons, but an insurer’s accounting rules and solvency regulations are inevitably at the heart of the decision. Whether they are primary drivers or simply help insurers judge acceptable pricing for a risk- or service-motivated transaction, these rules and regulations are a key part of the equation.