Q&A: Gerardo Garcia, Barents Re (Global Reinsurance)

CUO talks business expansion and why a new Cold War is an opportunity for the Panamanian reinsurer.

“Our ambition of having vertical integration is a strategy that is becoming clearer and will probably be the future strategy for much of the larger reinsurers in Europe. They are recognising that rates are going down so the only way to obtain returns is to have an integration that allows them to manage intermediary costs. Intermediary costs might come from broking but they may also come from having an insurance operation that charges you a commission to issue a policy. Reinsurers are becoming more integrated and we are moving to a world that is more stand alone and more interconnected on the insurance and reinsurance platform. In other words, soon you will have networks belonging to specific reinsurance operators that will have their own insurance companies so that capacity is given to their own insurers and will contact their clients directly. The impact will be that the local players and the brokers will be squeezed and will have a tough future”.

Full article:
http://www.globalreinsurance.com/qa-gerardo-garcia-barents-re/1407987.article