GESMARITIMA: enero 2016

Rising competition to offer reinsurance and slower activity in China, were two factors depressing rates, it said.

The blasts at Tianjin caused insured losses of up to $3.3 billion, Guy Carpenter has estimated, while reinsurer Swiss Re has called it the largest man-made insurance loss in Asia. The explosions killed more than 170 people.

“Tianjin has had little or no impact on marine pricing,” Chris Klein, head of EMEA strategy management at Guy Carpenter, told a news conference.

Many reinsurance contracts are renewed in January and Klein said marine reinsurance prices this month were down by between 5 and 20 percent from a year ago.

Reinsurance rates have been falling across the board for several years, with traditional reinsurers seeing increasing competition from “alternative” investors such as pension, hedge or sovereign wealth funds, who often choose to buy reinsurance packaged as a capital markets instrument.