Swiss Re targets “continuity, consistency” in alternative capital use, with “zero conflicts”

Speaking today in Monte Carlo, senior executives from Swiss Re’s reinsurance business unit explained that the firm’s Alternative Capital Partners (ACP) unit is an area where “consistency and continuity” are key, while the firm sees “zero conflicts” between its ACP investors and its equity holders.

During a briefing at the annual Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous event for the reinsurance industry, Moses Ojeisekhoba, CEO Global Clients & Solutions and Gianfranco Lot, Chief Underwriting Officer for P&C Reinsurance, explained that the Alternative Capital Partners (ACP) business unit is an area that also helps the reinsurer to drive further growth.

Ojeisekhoba explained that, “Risk partnerships for us is where we partner with other people to be able to fulfil the needs of our clients, whether those people are technology providers, IT providers, or capital providers, as you see in Swiss Re’s Alternative Capital Partner group. Here we constantly look to see how we can bring solutions to the benefit of our clients.”

Lot added, “The Alternative Capital Partners (ACP) practice, which was set up a number of years ago for the purpose of transforming insurance risk into a capital markets instrument, attracting investors into particularly the nat cat space.

“But it has broadened to other lines of business. So it’s a practice that is transversal across lines of businesses and forms an integral part of the capital management that Swiss Re has.”

Lot went on to highlight that, the ACP division, that works with insurance-linked securities (ILS) markets and investors, is an area for consistency and a continuation, that allows Swiss Re to “tap into the capital markets for our growth aspirations.”

Looking ahead to the role ACP can play at the end of year reinsurance contract signings, Lot said this would be, “More on the lines of continuity and consistency, also for the upcoming renewals.”

Ojeisekhoba then further explained how he sees the relationship between the alternative capital and ILS activities at the reinsurer, compared to its more traditional equity forms of capital.

“We see ACP has zero conflict between the investors that come into ACP and equity investors,” Ojeisekhoba said. “Because, in a lot of ways, ACP allows us to attract capital to continue to write certain amounts of business and inures to the benefit of our broader equity investors.”

Also read: Significantly improved outlook for alternative capital & ILS: Rüede, Swiss Re.