RenaissanceRe Group Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO) David Marra highlighted during the firm’s Q1 2026 earnings call, that new demand for reinsurance protection ahead of the key mid-year renewals was trending higher than the company initially projected at the January 1st renewals.
During the firm’s earnings call, Marra outlined that the Bermuda-based reinsurer and third-party capital management specialist is making good progress on the US mid-year renewals.
He emphasised that demand remains robust, presenting strong opportunities in the market, particularly within the “still highly accretive” property catastrophe space.
The CUO said: “We have already bound about half of our US mid-year portfolio, and roughly half of that has been on private terms. The Florida market continues to benefit from strong pricing, reduced social inflation due to tort reform, and robust terms and conditions.
“As a result of this improved environment, policies at Citizens are at a record low. The shift from public to private markets benefits the entire distribution chain, including increasing demand for reinsurance.”
Marra also noted that RenRe grew in Florida through both its acquisition of Validus and organically in 2025.
Recall, in late 2023, RenaissanceRe completed its acquisition of the Validus reinsurance business from AIG, which also included the insurance-linked securities (ILS) unit AlphaCat.
In addition, the CUO also expressed confidence in the current positioning of RenRe’s portfolio and the firm’s ability to capture profitable business from both existing programs and fresh demand in Q2.
Marra continued: “In other property, we continue to shape the book to reduce peak exposure while preserving attractive margins. The business is performing well, with strong current and prior year loss ratios, reflecting the quality of our underwriting decisions and our disciplined management of the book. Terms and conditions remain strong, but pricing is under more pressure.
“We are trimming exposure in the most pressured areas and improving expected net profitability through ceded reinsurance.”
During the Q&A portion of the call, Marra provided insight into the pricing of the firms U.S. book bound to date and addressed shifts in demand since the start of the year.
Marra said: “The Q2 deals that we’ve seen so far are pretty much a continuation of what we saw in Q1, when our rates were down mid-teen for the portfolio, but that was split between closer to 10% for US cat and closer to 15% for International and Globals. So, we’ve seen that mostly continue.
“Into Q2, we were still seeing a lot of opportunities for private terms. If you recall last year Q2, there was a lot of Florida business that we were able to access a lot of private terms. What we’re able to do with these early renewals is lock up our capacity early at terms better than the market, and the clients are able to fill out the placement from there. So, we’re really encouraged by how the team has been able to engage in that.”
The CUO concluded by upwardly revising the firm’s demand forecast: “New demand is actually higher than we thought at 1.1. If you go back a little bit, we were saying $20 billion of new demand in 2024, $15 billion in 2025, and we thought $10 billion was our estimate for 2026. That’s looking closer to $15 billion now, but we won’t know until all the Q2s are done.
“So, we’re seeing really good opportunities across the normal Q2s and the Florida book. That growth in demand, I’d also add is from a lot of core personal lines clients, which are buying new reinsurance because they have growth in TIVs and keeping up their programs with inflation. So, a really good combination for us to deploy capital into that.”
