JULY RENEWALS NOT SO DOWN OUTSIDE US, SAYS WILLIS RE

Insurers in Latin America, Asia and Australia failed to benefit from the level of catastrophe reinsurance rate cuts seen in the US, claimed Willis Re. The broker said that the international catastrophe market saw rates fall by no more than 10% overall., with pricing for some lines of reinsurance mainly flat. In the US reinsurance renewals, mainly at the beginning of June, rates had fallen by as much as 25%. James Vickers, chairman of Willis Re International, estimated that about 90% of the extra capital that came from the insurance-linked securities market had been allocated to US risk, meaning that the aggressive reductions from traditional reinsurers had been evident in the US, "but much less elsewhere". The broker observed that the recent losses in the US and Germany from tornadoes and floods respectively were unlikely to have an impact on pricing because the estimated losses were roughly in line with that allocated by reinsurers to the first half of the year.