3.1 Reinsurance is, by its very nature, a global business. Reinsurance exists, on a macroeconomic basis, in order to spread risk, not merely between companies but between countries and regions. Many of the earliest reinsurance agreements were made internationally and on a mutual basis whereby a company operating, for example, in Sweden, would share its risk with a company operating in Italy. By this means the accumulation of exposure to major natural disasters would be spread. Examples of mutual reinsurance can be found dating back to the early part of the nineteenth century.