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: 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: Chairperson's Corner from the March 2004 issue of Reinsurance News.

Description: In today’s competitive environment, there is an increasing focus on the process of selecting life reinsurers, largely as a result of two industry trends, namely consolidation and the amount of reinsurance ceded.

Description: Obesity is poised to overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of death. What parallels can be drawn between public and reinsurance industry responses to these two lifestyle choices? Swiss Re investigates.

Description: “Getting to Woe Some” is a thought-provoking title for Rick Flaspöhler’s recent presentation to the ACLI Reinsurance Executive Round Table in March 2005. Flaspöhler presented the high-level findings of the biennial reinsurance survey, and in his words this industry has gone from “bad to worse.” The reinsurance industry now finds itself in a unique and difficult situation that will require dramatic steps to improve things going forward.

Description: Each health plan is unique, and different factors must be considered when making a decision regarding reinsurance deductibles. This overview offers considerations when selecting a medical excess deductible for commercial, Medicare and Medicaid programs. It is more applicable for large payers, such as HMOs, rather than self-funded employers because there’s usually not enough claims data to warrant such analysis on any given employer group. From Reinsurance Section News, May 2005, Issue No. 55.

Description: This article discusses the changes in the life reinsurance business over the last 45 years. From Reinsurance Section News, May 2005, Issue No. 55.

Description: This article provides an update on principles-based reserves for life insurance.

Description: This article lists participating companies and countries with the International Experience Study and describes the process of adding additional countries to the study.