David Sommer, managing director, EMB América Latina

The opening up of the Brazilian reinsurance market to foreign companies in April 2008 has obscured the significance of developments in the country’s primary insurance market over the last decade. Here, David Sommer, an actuary with years of experience in the region, talks about the liberalisation of Brazil’s primary insurance market, the current situation regarding pricing and the setting of tariffs and the extent to which foreign groups are already present in the market. Mr. Sommer also comments on insurance market reform in other countries in the region and considers the issues and challenges which insurance companies in Brazil will have to negotiate in order to comply with the new risk based solvency requirements by 2011

There has been a great deal of publicity surrounding the liberalisation of the Brazilian reinsurance market which, after more than a decade of intense debate and consultation, was signed into law in January 2007. The market was officially opened to foreign companies just over a year later, in April 2008.