Hamilton, Bermuda (April 24, 2017) – The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) today released the 2016 global underwriting results for its member (re)insurers. Twenty one of 23 member (re)insurers participated in this 2016 report. The companies write insurance and reinsurance from underwriting centers in Bermuda, Europe, Asia, North and South America. The 21 (re)insurers wrote $92.296 billion (US) in global gross written premium on a capital and surplus base of $123.6 billion. They reported net income of $10.2 billion in their global businesses. The gross premium to equity ratio for the group was .75 to 1.

“While soft market conditions prevail the resilience of the members is demonstrated by their robust underwriting results.  Members continue to seek new markets in the developed and developing world to put risk capital to work,” noted Bradley Kading, president and executive director of ABIR. “ABIR members continue to be focused on reducing expenses and exploring new product opportunities.”

“As a representative of global risk underwriters, in its public policy work ABIR focuses on the consumer benefits of increased capacity and reduced price that result from the ability to diversify global risk onto a flagship balance sheet.  Protectionism in regulatory or tax public policies harms the ability of these global (re)insurers to diversify risk and thus makes insurance markets less competitive,” Kading said.

Kading cautioned against making comparisons of aggregates from this year’s underwriting report with last year’s, noting that the association had three new members and several members completed significant acquisitions during the reporting period.  Aggregate growth in premium and surplus year over year can be largely attributed to a combination of the new members and the acquisitions made by existing members.

Past reports are available on the ABIR website at www.ABIR.bm.

File: ABIR member individual and aggregate results

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About ABIR: The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) represents Bermuda’s major property and casualty insurers and reinsurers. Bermuda is the center of global expertise on underwriting for catastrophe risk transfer products and other specialty insurance and reinsurance. For more information, please visit: www.abir.bm. Follow us on Twitter @ABIR_Bermuda.