The Reinsurance Podcast

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  Monte Carlo #57 - Dirk Spenner: Don’t Waste a Soft Reinsurance Market 18.09.2026 14мин

  Everyone's calling this a soft market. Dirk Spenner, CEO International at Gallagher Re, thinks that's the boring way to read it. He sat down with us on a boat in Monaco to make the case that record capital isn't really a price story — it's an optionality story, and most buyers are about to waste it exactly like they wasted the last one.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why most clients pocketed their savings after the 2023 property market reset instead of reinvesting in better structures — and why that's about to changeHow to tell the difference between a market handing you cheaper cover and a market handing you a better oneWhat "optionality" actually means for a renewal, beyond a lower rateWhy data center and AI-exposure aggregation is quietly becoming a bigger underwriting headache than any single hurricaneWhy Gallagher Re expects faster consolidation between reinsurers who price and manage risk well, and everyone elseEPISODE LINKS:Dirk's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirk-spenner-31973240/Gallagher Re: https://www.ajg.com/gallagherre/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #56 - Laurent Montador: Calm Markets Can Be Dangerous 18.09.2026 11мин

  Everyone at Monte Carlo this year agreed the market's calm. Laurent Montador, Deputy CEO of Arundo Re, thinks that's exactly the problem. He joins The Reinsurance Podcast to explain why three straight years of softening, wildfires spreading from Los Angeles to the south of France, and a jittery bond market might be quietly setting up the next hard cycle.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why disciplined reinsurers are still finding room to compete in a soft market without breaking formHow wildfires in France and Spain are changing the way secondary perils get priced — and why they're so hard to modelWhere agentic AI is actually landing in reinsurance operations, and why the front office stays humanWhich combination of shocks — inflation, financial markets, losses — could flip a soft market hard almost overnightWhere Arundo Re is still finding growth (India and life reinsurance) while other lines softenTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:37 Monte Carlo 2026: a market still softening01:47 Staying disciplined without losing clients02:47 When cedents and brokers push back on terms03:52 Wildfires move secondary perils closer to home05:27 Where AI is actually being used in reinsurance06:42 Real-time data, real risk: the privacy tightrope07:57 The pockets of growth in a soft market09:07 The combination that could harden the market fast10:42 Closing thoughts from Monte CarloEPISODE LINKS:Laurent's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-montador-3b41688/Arundo Re: https://www.arundore.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #55 - Jon Laux: AI Risk Isn't a Cyber Problem 17.09.2026 11мин

  Jon Laux, Head of Analytics at CyberCube, explains why the reinsurance industry's cyber lane can't hold it, and where the exposure actually lands. That's after his insurance rapping intro!WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why treating AI as the next wave of cyber leaves your real exposure sitting in casualtyHow to separate network risk from a genuinely new kind of intelligence risk, and why that distinction decides which wordings respondWhat the I2T2 framework (information, intelligence, technology, tactics) gives underwriters that exclusions and grants never willWhere AI liability lands when a professional services firm's bad inputs become somebody else's lossWhy the next concentration risk might be called Anthropic or OpenAI rather than AWS or AzureEPISODE LINKS:Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-laux-9477a72/Cybercube: https://www.cybcube.com/OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:37 Jon Laux raps03:37 From kid rapper to insurance conference stages04:16 Two realities: machine speed against 12-month policies06:04 I2T2, and why it isn't a Star Wars droid07:24 Not just a new form of cyber risk07:45 When Anthropic and OpenAI become the new AWS08:20 Cyber is network risk. AI is a new kind of intelligence08:48 Why this is really a casualty conversation09:30 Insurance likes lanes. The lanes are getting redrawn
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  Monte Carlo #54 - Joachim Racz: The Reinsurance Cycle Is Overcorrecting 17.09.2026 14мин

  Everyone arrived in Monaco certain the market was going one way. Joachim Racz, CEO at Ageas Re, spent the week telling brokers that the ask went 20%, then 15%, then 10% in about ten days, and there's a reason it stops somewhere. He calls the last four years hazard-driven over-oscillation — reinsurance repricing down as fast as it repriced up, with IFRS 17 now sitting underneath the whole thing like a floor nobody wants to be first to test.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why pricing to a 10% ROE in 2026 is a worse trade than the identical number in 2021, and what 350 basis points of risk-free rate does to the shareholder mathsHow onerous contract reporting under IFRS 17 changes soft-market behaviour, and why 2027 is the first cycle where the loss shows up on day one rather than 31 DecemberWhat four consecutive loss-light years do to everyone's view of what they were actually pricing forWhere the model gaps are already showing — Portuguese windstorm, European wildfire — and what that means for perils nobody rated as leadWhy AI investment across re/insurance is real but slow, and how a nine-month internal approval swallows a one-week buildA specific thing to watch for yourself this week: whether the tone on Wednesday evening matches the tone on SundayOUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS00:00 Intro00:37 A strange market, and brokers testing 20%, then 15%, then 10%01:53 Why 2021 pricing doesn't mean 2021 economics03:02 IFRS 17, onerous contracts, and the floor nobody wants to test04:56 Hazard-driven over-oscillation, and the cost of wild swings07:07 What you can and can't blame on climate change08:34 Secondary perils and the Portuguese windstorm nobody modelled09:43 5% of staff budget on AI, and nine months waiting on IT10:59 Disruptors, cybersecurity, and five points off the combined ratio12:53 Sunday's tone versus Wednesday's: what to watch this weekEPISODE LINKS:Joachim's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joachim-racz-a11401/Ageas Re: https://www.ageas-re.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #53 - Laurent Rousseau: Soft Markets Create Dangerous Confidence 16.09.2026 13мин

  Laurent Rousseau has been on both sides of the desk — trading floor, then broking, now running Global Capital & Advisory at Marsh. Reinsurance is softening, capital is emboldened, and everyone's telling themselves this time is different because the models are better. He thinks the accident just comes through a different door. This one's a masterclass in reading a market you can't fully see yet.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why "the market is softening" and "the market is safe" are not the same sentence, no matter how good your models areHow to build optionality into your 1/1 reinsurance programme without playing the villain to your long-term partnersWhy most reinsurers are less differentiated from each other than they'd like to admit — and what actually separates the ones that areWhat it will really take to shake reinsurance out of its complacency on data and tech, according to someone who's watched it stall for yearsHow to read the "pointillist picture" of Monte Carlo without mistaking a boring consensus for a useless oneEPISODE LINKS:Laurent's LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-rousseau-27b8a63/⁠Marsh: ⁠https://www.marsh.com/⁠Marsh Re: https://www.marsh.com/reinsuranceCONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #52 - Waleed Jabsheh: When Excess Capital Starts Driving Bad Decisions 16.09.2026 15мин

  Everyone at Monte Carlo this year is having the same conversation: too much capital, too much appetite, not enough discipline. IGI's CEO Waleed Jabsheh sat down with us on a boat considerably nicer than ours and told us, essentially, to relax — the market always finds its own blood eventually. He also explained why IGI shrank its book on purpose last year, launched a Bermuda-based cyber MGA in the middle of a soft market, and is betting on a person rather than a portfolio to get them through it.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why IGI would rather shrink premium by 4% than chase growth that doesn't pay for itselfWhat actually turns a soft market hard (hint: it isn't economics or geopolitics)Why "excess capital" is quietly the most dangerous phrase in reinsurance right nowWhy the Middle East war's $2bn+ property hit hasn't moved pricing as much as it shouldWhy IGI just launched a Bermuda cyber MGA instead of waiting out the cycleTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:37 RVS 2026 through IGI01:10 Managing the cycle: protecting five years of gains02:12 Where real opportunity still hides in a soft market02:45 Underwriting profitability over topline growth03:50 Why IGI shrank the book and doesn't regret it04:20 What it actually takes to turn a soft market hard04:46 Benign losses, growing hunger, and naive capacity05:49 When excess capital tempts bad decisions06:23 The risk nobody's pricing07:32 The Middle East war09:16 Does deglobalisation threaten a global industry?10:21 Letting hunger override discipline11:18 Inside IGI's GIFT City and Cipher Underwriting13:28 Why talent, not capital, is the real bet behind CipherEPISODE LINKS:Waleed's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waleedjabsheh/IGI: https://www.iginsure.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #51 – Jeremy Epstein: Insuring AI's Authority to Act 15.09.2026 8мин

  Everyone's pricing AI as a headline risk. Jeremy Epstein thinks that's the wrong question entirely — the risk isn't that a company uses AI, it's what authority they've quietly handed it to act without anyone watching. He left underwriting for venture, watched every pitch deck turn into "AI-native law firm," and built Mayflower Specialty to insure the gap nobody else is pricing.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why "AI" as a noun tells you nothing about the risk — and what to ask insteadHow a five-person team is underwriting exposure for organisations backed by AA-rated capitalThe line between AI drafting a suggestion and AI shipping it unsupervised — and why that line is the whole policyWhy standards like NIST and ISO 42001 are becoming the difference between insurable and uninsurableWhat building "from zero" in the AI era actually looks like versus retrofitting a legacy insurerEveryone's pricing AI as a headline risk. Jeremy Epstein thinks that's the wrong question entirely — the risk isn't that a company uses AI, it's what authority they've quietly handed it to act without anyone watching. He left underwriting for venture, watched every pitch deck turn into "AI-native law firm," and built Mayflower Specialty to insure the gap nobody else is pricing.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why "AI" as a noun tells you nothing about the risk — and what to ask insteadHow a five-person team is underwriting exposure for organisations backed by AA-rated capitalThe line between AI drafting a suggestion and AI shipping it unsupervised — and why that line is the whole policyWhy standards like NIST and ISO 42001 are becoming the difference between insurable and uninsurableWhat building "from zero" in the AI era actually looks like versus retrofitting a legacy insurerEPISODE LINKS:Jeremy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaepstein00002/Mayflower Specialty: https://mayflowerspecialty.com/OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Meet Jeremy & the Idea Behind AI Insurance00:52 Building an AI-Native Insurance Business02:08 Running an MGA With Just Five People03:02 When Does AI Stop Replacing Headcount?03:52 The Real Risk: What You Let AI Do05:05 Underwriting AI Deployment06:05 AI Isn’t Just Software Anymore07:05 What Traditional Insurers Can Learn From AI-Native Firms07:42 Final Thoughts
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  Monte Carlo #50 - Scott Egan: Stop Calling This a Soft Market 15.09.2026 11мин

  Everyone at Monte Carlo wants to talk about the soft market. Scott Egan, CEO of SiriusPoint, says that's the wrong question. Recorded live at RVS 2026, he breaks down why treating reinsurance like one market with one cycle is how you get hurt, and where SiriusPoint is quietly leaning in while property cat hogs the microphone.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why "the market cycle" is a lazy headline that hides what's really happening market by marketWhy property cat dominates the conversation at Monte Carlo while other lines tell a completely different storyWhere SiriusPoint is leaning into casualty risk, and where they're deliberately staying out (commercial auto included)Why active diversification, not a static portfolio, is what separates the winnersWhy Scott thinks AI is quietly changing everything and revolutionising nothingTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:38 Setting the Scene at RVS 202602:01 Staying Sharp Across a Diversified Book03:11 Why Data Centres Look Like the Next Cyber04:24 Stop Calling This a Soft Market05:58 Baking Culture Into an AI-Driven Business07:11 Reading the Room Before 1/1 Renewals08:44 The Loyalty Behind SiriusPoint's Comeback09:45 Why AI Is Evolution, Not RevolutionEPISODE LINKS:Scott's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-egan-a78a5b185/SiriusPoint: https://www.siriuspt.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Monte Carlo #49 - Daniel Raizman: Data Centres Are Reinsurance's Biggest Growth Bet 15.09.2026 10мин

  Somewhere between eight and ten trillion dollars is heading into data centres by 2030. The reinsurance market's response so far has been to argue about how to code the occupancy. Daniel Raizman of Aon joins Ben at Monte Carlo to talk through the market's largest growth opportunity, and why "name your three biggest concentrations" is the question nobody wants to be asked twice.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:- Why a $13bn premium pool in 2026 becomes roughly $29bn by 2030, and what the market has to do to actually write it- How to find data centre exposure inside a portfolio when the only thing you've been given is a geocode- Why reinsurers are now asking cedents to name their three largest concentrations, and what it takes to answer- What the chips and GPUs inside a campus do to its value once the compute goes in- Why the most expensive data centre loss might involve no physical damage at allTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:34 Daniel Raizman on Aon's data centre and digital infrastructure push01:37 The $10 trillion capex wave and the $29bn premium prize02:30 6,500 data centres already exist, so what actually changed03:16 Inside a live build: 5,000 workers a day and the contents problem04:11 Why data centre risk is coming off balance sheets05:10 Identifying data centre exposure when all you have is a geocode05:53 The three-concentrations question reinsurers keep asking06:54 Dive straight in, or get a grip on exposure first07:38 Triaging sites for wind, seismic and extreme heat08:15 Fire, tornadoes and the perils that actually bite09:00 The uptime penalties that dwarf the physical damage10:02 Where the capital needs to go nextEPISODE LINKS:Daniel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielraizman/Aon: https://www.aon.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠
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  Nick Hankin: What Earns a Cedent More Capacity | TRP #178 25.08.2026 27мин

  Nick Hankin spent thirty years buying reinsurance at RSA, Zurich, AXA, AIG and Aviva. Now he runs QBE Re, and he is unusually direct about which cedents get his capacityand which part of the book quietly stops getting renewed. Three months out from 1/1, that is a useful thing to hear said out loud.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:- How a top-20 reinsurer sorts its book into global, key and transactional clients, and what moves you between them- Why consistency through a softening market buys more capacity than opportunism ever will- Where attachment point discipline needs to hold at 1/1, and where Hankin thinks the market could slip- What a casualty sidecar actually lets a reinsurer say yes to- Why 170 people and a $6bn ambition makes AI a force multiplier rather than a headcount questionEPISODE LINKS:Nick's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-hankin-b538595/QBE Re: https://qbere.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro & Nick Hankin’s Journey to QBE Re01:53 From Insurance Buyer to Reinsurer03:12 Why Reinsurance Is a People Business04:19 Local Decision-Making, Global Thinking06:27 QBE Re’s Growth Strategy & the Softening Market09:37 Product Innovation & Growth Levers11:12 Sidecars, Parametrics & Emerging Risks14:28 Broker Partnerships & New Markets15:27 Property, Casualty & Market Discipline20:10 AI & the Future of Reinsurance21:56 Attracting Talent & Building the Right Culture23:35 AI Skills, Reverse Mentoring & LLMs25:33 Closing Thoughts
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  Build an MGA That Keeps Growing | TRP #177 18.08.2026 19мин

  There's a reliable way to spot a boom in insurance: count the conferences. Cyber got its own, then AI, and now MGA events have taken over the calendar. Tom Spier joins Cordy on The Reinsurance Podcast to work out whether the MGA surge is a real shift in how risk reaches capacity, or just a lot of good underwriters building their own wealth instead of somebody else's.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why MGA fortunes track the insurance cycle, and where margin hides when it softensWhy underwriting discipline alone won't win capacity in a soft market, and what actually doesHow insurers are getting their arms around a third of the book they didn't underwrite, from the Fidelis split to Axis's $10bn delegated authority ambitionWhat reinsurers should be asking about an MGA's distribution health instead of reading last year's bordereauWhere AI genuinely speeds up MGA quoting, and where it just makes the inbox louderEPISODE LINKS:Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomspier/BindSignal: https://bindsignal.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:32 MGAs in a Softening Market02:43 How the MGA Model Works03:59 What Makes an MGA Stand Out?05:14 Growth, Distribution & Underwriting Discipline07:22 How Insurers Manage MGA Portfolios09:45 How MGA Business Flows Into Reinsurance10:58 Data, Bordereaux & Assessing Performance12:44 Why Distribution Health Matters14:12 AI, Submission Ingestion & the Human Bottleneck16:14 Will the MGA Boom Keep Going?
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  One Spreadsheet Error Away From Disaster | TRP #176 11.08.2026 29мин

  Every reinsurance office has a spreadsheet only one person understands, and this episode is about why that's the industry's biggest quiet risk. Jerad and Ben start by defending spreadsheets properly, Spreadsheet Olympics included, before turning on the very flexibility that makes them dangerous. It's not really about Excel: it's about what happens the day the person who built it doesn't work there anymore.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why the industry's "singular greatest key person risk" isn't a person — it's whoever built the spreadsheet they left behindHow a single overwritten cell can undo months of pricing or placement work, and why "version 9 vs version 10" rarely tells you what actually changedWhy massive spreadsheets grind to a halt, and the workaround actuaries already use to keep them aliveWhat reinsurance can borrow from software engineering's approach to tracking changes, instead of hoping nobody touches the macroWhy most firms are already auditing which processes are one bus ride away from disasterCONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:00 Why Reinsurance Loves Spreadsheets02:19 From Spreadsheet Olympics to Spreadsheet Risk05:14 When Spreadsheet Utility Starts to Break Down08:23 Why Replacing Excel Is So Hard11:30 The Problem with “Utopian” Spreadsheets14:06 Key-Person Dependency & the Bus Factor17:12 Keeping Flexibility, Adding Auditability20:04 Rethinking Data Transformation23:19 What Reinsurance Can Learn from GitHub24:57 What Shouldn’t Live in a Spreadsheet28:37 Spreadsheet Dystopia & Outro
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  Maurits Van Joolingen: The Insurability Crisis No One Is Pricing In | TRP #175 04.08.2026 21мин

  Everyone in reinsurance obsesses over the claims side of the balance sheet: what happens when things go wrong. Maurits Van Joolingen, Managing Director of Climate Scenarios & Sustainability at Ortec Finance, spends his time on the assets insurers actually hold, and whether the models pricing that risk are dangerously optimistic. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why the industry-standard NGFS climate scenarios might be underestimating the real riskHow nonlinear warming assumptions change the math on portfolio exposureWhat a 25%-uninsurable-housing scenario means for insurers' long-term business modelsWhy divesting from high-emission sectors might be the wrong move for asset ownersHow leading insurers are moving from "raising awareness" to actually changing capital allocationEPISODE LINKS:Maurits's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauritsvanjoolingen/Ortec Finance: https://www.ortecfinance.com/CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Intro03:44 - The Two Ways Insurers Model Climate Risk06:10 - Why Ortec Bets on Nonlinear Climate Risk08:00 - From Awareness to Decisions: Where Scenarios Fell Short08:57 - Why 25% of Housing Could Become Uninsurable by 205010:47 - Why You Can't Just Pull Out of a High-Risk Region11:45 - Should Governments Backstop Climate Risk for Insurers?13:15 - What Should Risk Officers Be Doing Right Now?15:37 - Are Clients Waking Up to the NGFS's Blind Spots?16:51 - Regulators, Governance, and the Case for Scenario Planning18:08 - What's Next: Blending Top-Down and Bottom-Up Models20:44 - Closing Thoughts
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  James Rendell: Why Your Cat Model Is Blind to Secondary Perils | TRP #175 14.07.2026 26мин

  Better cat modelling isn't just about avoiding bad risk, it's about finding and writing the good risk your competitors are mispricing. James Rendell, CEO of BirdsEyeView, saw that gap and convinced the European Space Agency to back him, and built something that the big vendors hadn't properly tackled. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:- Why secondary perils like wildfire and severe convective storms are fundamentally harder to model than hurricanes — and how to tackle that properly- How year-old fuel data makes most wildfire models quietly unreliable, and what it means for your next renewal- Why a higher-resolution cat model is a revenue tool, not just a risk-avoidance one — and how soft market conditions make this more urgent- The meaningful difference between physics-based machine learning models and LLMs when you need to explain your risk view to an actuary- How an ESA-backed startup went from contingency market niche to a cat modelling platform used across Lloyd's syndicates, Australian cover holders, US MGAs and beyondTIMESTAMPS:00:00 James Rendell: from broker to insurtech founder01:54 BirdsEyeView and the ESA05:34 The cat modelling landscape07:00 The contingency market gap09:30 Why secondary perils are harder to model12:35 Wildfire, SCS, and building better models14:10 Physics, machine learning, and satellite data16:06 The fuel data problem18:00 AI and the future of cat modelling21:50 Soft market advantage: write more premium
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  2030 Reinsurance Predictions We Might Regret | TRP #174 07.07.2026 29мин

  Jerad and Ben skip the small talk and jump straight to 2030, asking the one question worth asking about AI and reinsurance: what actually changes, and what's just getting a shinier coat of paint. They cover cat models, capital allocation, contract structuring, dying market standards, and an industry expense ratio that's somehow gone up instead of down. No guest this week — just two hosts making predictions they might regret.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why AI-driven cat modeling might be the one part of reinsurance that actually gets faster and better, not just differentWhy the relationship-driven, napkin-deal side of the business probably won't look any different in 2030Why the market's expense ratio has crept up instead of down despite a decade of technology investment, and what that says about how the industry should be valuing tech spend in the first placeWhy rigid market standards and clause libraries might not survive contact with natural language processingWhy nobody's handing a nine-figure placement to an autonomous agent any time soon, and where automation actually helps insteadCONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:09 Has reinsurance actually changed by 203002:11 Cat models get the biggest AI upgrade in the industry04:44 How AI reshapes reinsurer portfolio and capital strategy05:46 Why brokers couldn't care less whose paper it is07:21 Alternative capital's coopetition with reinsurers08:06 Testing five contract structures before lunch10:48 The expense ratio problem nobody in reinsurance can explain12:25 What Silicon Valley's AI spend says about return on investment14:50 Is AI reinsurance's Concorde, or its Metaverse18:23 Why natural language could kill reinsurance market standards21:53 Would you hand a $50m placement to an autonomous agent25:07 The most impactful reinsurance app was never built for reinsurance26:53 Monte Carlo, quants, and the last of the 2030 predictions
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  Why Brokers Lose Clients (and How to Fix It) | TRP #173 30.06.2026 24мин

  Reinsurance brokers are famous for remembering the small things — the underwriter's dog, the client's restaurant preference at Monte Carlo, whose birthday party they attended last spring. Less famous for: knowing why that market got signed down two renewals ago, or finding the email that explains a call a colleague is now questioning. This episode is about that gap, and why it costs more than the industry admits.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why annual reinsurance cycles mean brokers are always working from memories 12+ months old — and how that memory decays faster than anyone acknowledgesWhat most firms actually track (signings, authorisations, quotes) — and why the gaps between those tiers quietly kill your leverage at renewalHow staff movement strips firms of institutional knowledge, and what that means when a competitor tries to poach your client mid-RFPWhy charming a counterparty and remembering their portfolio history aren't interchangeable — and why one without the other falls apartWhat CEO-to-CEO meetings could look like if the full relationship picture were actually accessible, not just a deal snapshotTIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:34 Is closing the deal the end of the story?02:13 How value leaks during & after placement05:00 The email archive problem08:00 What firms actually track 09:15 When human memory becomes institutional memory12:00 Staff turnover and the knowledge exodus14:20 Why brokers keep losing RFPs 16:00 Horror stories from the archives17:15 Prepping meetings with half the picture20:30 The case for technical recallCONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:
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  How to Win a Soft Market Without Burning Bridges | TRP #172 10.06.2026 24мин

  In a softening reinsurance market, it’s tempting to chase the cheapest capacity, squeeze every last point out of pricing, and call it a win. But that’s how you burn bridges. In this episode, Ben and Jerad unpack how cedents and brokers should approach renewal season when capital is abundant, pricing pressure is building, and everyone suddenly has options again.CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:06 Soft Market Strategies02:17 New Narratives & Softening Conditions03:49 Cedents: Opportunity or Trap?06:24 How Poor Data Damages Relationships08:27 The Broker’s Role in a Soft Market09:11 Price Cuts vs Long-Term Partnerships11:31 Why Hammering Existing Partners Can Backfire15:20 A Benign Cat Year… But What Comes Next?19:14 Spotting Gaps Across Programmes20:23 Using the Soft Market to Rethink Structures21:23 Broker Nimbleness & Proactive Ideas24:09 Closing Thoughts
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  How Challenger Brokers Are Winning Clients in a Soft Market | TRP #171 02.06.2026 18мин

  Reinsurance brokers invest heavily in analytics, cat models, and back-office systems. Almost none of it faces the client. In a softening market where cheaper reinsurance is table stakes, Ben Rose and Tom Spier break down why the broker-client relationship is the one that actually needs the technology — and why most firms have completely overlooked it.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why getting clients a cheaper deal is no longer enough to keep their business in a soft marketHow challenger brokers backed by private equity are forcing the big three to rethink their value propositionThe structural reason brokers can't build client-facing tools in-house (and why clients don't want them to)Why the broker who meets the client where they already work will win over the one with the flashiest portalWhat cedents should be looking for when choosing between ten credible brokers instead of threeCONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠ YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠ RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠ OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro01:57 How Supercede Started04:06 The Real Friction Isn't Between Broker and Underwriter05:54 The Broker Landscape: From Big Three to Top Fifteen08:13 Hard Market vs Soft Market: How Broker Value Shifts09:19 Cheap Reinsurance Is Table Stakes — Now What?10:31 What Brokers Actually Spend Their Tech Budgets On12:34 The Gap: Nothing Between Broker and Client13:56 Why In-House Portals Don't Work for Clients14:48 Analytics & the PDF Report Problem16:08 Meeting Clients Where They Are17:48 Minimising Change Management by Using Existing Workflows
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  Your Reinsurance Tech Isn't Making You Money | TRP #170 20.05.2026 32мин

  Since cat modelling landed in the early '90s, nothing in reinsurance tech has stuck with the same force. Blockchain, digital exchanges, Blueprint 2 — the graveyard is long. Ben Rose and Tom Spier trace the history of failed innovation and land on a question the industry still hasn't answered well: if efficiency doesn't move the needle and speed doesn't matter, what does technology in reinsurance actually need to do?WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why the efficiency argument falls flat in reinsurance — and what to pitch insteadHow blockchain's transparency killed its own value proposition in a market built on information asymmetryThe chicken-and-egg problem that buried most market-wide adoption playsWhy single-player value — tech that works even if nobody else uses it — is the pattern that survivesWhat AI actually changes for reinsurance software and where vibe-coded solutions will fall shortTIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Intro(01:57) Cat Modelling: The Last Innovation That Stuck(04:58) The Graveyard — Why Digital Reinsurance Keeps Failing(06:50) Reinsurance Is Not a Commodities Market(09:00) Digitisation vs. Digitalisation — What Actually Adds Value(10:49) The Efficiency Trap — Why It Doesn't Move the Needle(14:47) Speed, Timing and Precision — The Real Nuance(15:17) Blockchain's Transparency Problem(17:02) Information Asymmetry and Why It Matters(17:56) The Chicken-and-Egg Adoption Problem(19:54) AI's Promise — And the Vibe Coding Trap(22:37) Niche Software, Common Standards and Interoperability(26:27) Why the Placement Process Hasn't Changed(27:20) Trust, Relationships and £100M Decisions(31:39) Will Robots Be at Monte Carlo This Year?CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: [email protected]: https://www.supercede.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehqX: https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQRSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss
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  Why Cedents Still Buy Reinsurance Blind | TRP #169 12.05.2026 31мин

  The reinsurance market spent 2025 promising to invest in technology. In 2026, something actually happened — and it wasn't what anyone expected. In this episode, Ben and Tom Spier unpack why the market suddenly stopped fearing tech, what "placement intelligence" actually means for cedants, and why the biggest shift wasn't new software but a change in how people talk about it.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:Why Q1 2026 became the best quarter insurtech vendors had ever seen — after years of stalled budgetsHow cedants went from flying blind during renewals to getting a broker's-eye view of their own dealsWhat killed the appetite for "big bang" transformation projects — and what replaced themWhy the word "platform" became a liability and how reframing as "intelligence" changed buyer behaviourHow integrations with accounting, capital modelling, and settlement systems made adoption feel invisibleEPISODE LINKS:Placement Intelligence for Cedants: ⁠https://supercede.com/placement-intelligence/⁠CONNECT WITH US:Say Hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://www.supercede.com⁠LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercedehq⁠X: ⁠https://twitter.com/SupercedeHQ⁠YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SupercedeHQ⁠RSS Feed: ⁠https://anchor.fm/s/7e741c8c/podcast/rss⁠TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro00:38 Ben and Tom set the scene01:28 Two propositions getting traction in the market02:04 The positioning shift: same tech, different story02:52 2025's tech budgets vs 2026's reality04:36 The sentiment shift: from big-bang projects to quick wins06:23 Getting back to basics after the AI honeymoon06:46 Starting with the cedant side of the chain07:31 Why Supercede started as a placing platform08:22 The educated buyer: why cedants drive reinsurance deals09:16 What cedants had before — spreadsheets and waiting10:14 Information asymmetry and the system rigged against buyers11:55 Why there was no technology serving cedants13:00 From placing platform to cedant-first product14:34 Starting with firm orders and audit compliance16:17 How compliance risk drives behavioural change17:13 The post-Blueprint 2 shift away from "platform" language18:06 Minimal operational change, maximum positioning shift20:06 The product evolution: APIs, integrations, and real use cases21:39 Partner analysis dashboards and capital modelling25:06 Quote-to-signed-line: intelligence brokers weren't tracking25:40 Placement intelligence — what's behind the name27:01 Placement intelligence vs placement automation28:00 Where broker value actually lives in the process29:42 Step-by-step data transformations as proof of value30:56 Why brokerage fees aren't extortionate (when you can see the work)31:15 Outro and what's next