Over the past 20 years, the reinsurance industry has experienced three profound forces for change. First,
technological change has improved information distribution and strengthened connections between global
markets. Second, regulatory emphasis on global equivalence in trading practices has generated pressure for
convergence across different marketplaces. Third, the widespread acceptance of vendor property catastrophe
models has led to more standardised approaches to the evaluation of reinsurance risks, levelling the playing
field for decision-making on at least some classes of business.
These changes have intensified competition between reinsurance markets. Reinsurance trading centres in remote
geographic locations, such as Bermuda, where it is more difficult to transact business face-to-face, have been
able to write risk via electronic communications and now have very significant positions in the global reinsurance
market. Simultaneously, Lloyd’s of London, one of the original reinsurance markets that is still very much based
on the face-to-face approach, has demonstrated its capability to weather financial shocks and downturns and
remains an important player in global reinsurance
