With last week’s news that Aspen agreed to be acquired by Sompo for $3.5B, I thought it was worth doing a brief retrospective on the Aspen saga and how they ended up here along with the delicious irony of Sompo being the ultimate acquirer. The recent sale was actually Aspen’s Continue Reading
How To Fund New Reinsurers
Last time I wrote about how MGAs could access capital to help them build balance sheets to diversify their sources of capital. Today, I have solutions for how to bring capital to another part of the industry – reinsurers. With a few exceptions (Convex, Vantage, someone I’m forgetting?), a new Continue Reading
The Insurance Startup Funding Vacuum
There is always outsized interest in insurance startups, whether they be new reinsurers, the latest “insuretech”, a new MGA, etc. But one topic that tends to go overlooked is that there is a big impediment today to getting a startup off the ground – financing. Historically, new insurers were funded Continue Reading
Decoding Insurer Speak
One of my main roles as an investor was trying to assess the difference between what companies said and what they were actually telling you with their actions. Company scripts for investor calls rarely directly answered your questions. I had to read between the lines or listen for what was Continue Reading
How Prisoner’s Dilemma Made ILS and Streaming TV Worse
Innovations are supposed to make things better, but sometimes, they, inadvertently, make things worse. How so? Because they can create some bad game theory incentives. Companies feel pressured to do something that is a positive if only they do it, but, once everyone copies it, results in a lower equilibrium. Continue Reading
There Is No Magic In MGAs
I’ve been around the insurance business long enough to remember when MGA was a four letter word. It wasn’t as bad as it was thought then, but it’s also not as good as the regard it’s held in now. MGAs are flawed structures, but they do have some benefits. Just Continue Reading
This Cat Market Cycle Is Not Like The Others
Reinsurance prices were up ~50% at January 1. While most observers would tell you my hurricane is responsible, I think that’s a myth. What we are now experiencing is a market hardening unlike previous cycles, except one. It is acting like the oil market of last year. What do I Continue Reading
New Year’s Flashback: Revisiting Past Predictions
Last week, I looked back at some of 2022’s predictions, but this blog has made a lot of successful predictions over the years. In fact, I think it’s one of the core strengths of what I do here. I sometimes forget most people reading probably have not been around for Continue Reading
The Reinsurer’s Veto Is Here: What Higher Cat Reinsurance Prices Mean For MGAs
New Fair Use Policy: I’ve always operated under the principle that this blog is meant to enlighten others and thus, if people want to share it, they are more than welcome to do so. I assumed anyone reproducing it in a professional context would be, well, professional enough to cite Continue Reading
Why Insuretechs Should Be Scared of the Reinsurer’s Veto
Informed Tip of the Week: Informed was designed specifically to avoid the Reinsurer’s Veto. It’s one of the many reasons we’ve chosen to start as an independent agent. Cash Burn Is So 2020 To keep with the recent theme of calling out the obvious, it’s time to talk about the Continue Reading