WR Berkley places 2020 cat renewal using Tremor marketplace

Insurer WR Berkley has priced and placed the renewal of its 2020 Property Catastrophe Program using Tremor, the venture-backed insurance technology firm that has developed a programmatic marketplace for insurance and reinsurance risk transfer.

More than 50 reinsurers from all major markets participated with $600 million of capacity made available by Tremor for the renewal.

The deal means Tremor has now exceeded more than $2 billion in reinsurer quotes and now counts more than 100 reinsurers, Lloyd’s syndicates and ILS funds as members of its marketplace.

The process on Tremor means reinsurers receive submission materials and the contract is negotiated and finalized in advance. Reinsurers then log into Tremor and submit blind sealed bids. After the quoting window closes, the final results are reported to all sides of the marketplace within hours. The final clearing price per layer and each reinsurer’s precise allocation are then reported and lines are ready to sign.

Melissa Emmendorfer, senior vice president, Insurance Risk Management at WR Berkley Corporation, said: “Completing our first renewal on Tremor really emphasized the benefits of the platform. This year, with less time spent on the education process, the timing efficiency gains were more obvious, highlighted by the fact that the entire program was priced and allocated before Thanksgiving.

Tremor’s enhanced technology, which included additional features as suggested by reinsurers during our placement process last year, performed well and we are pleased with our outcome- both in terms of cost as well as the broader distribution of reinsurance partners that received a share of our placement.”

For the Berkley renewal, the large panel provided for a diversity of reinsurers including a large number of London market participants, ILS funds and a large number of smaller reinsurance companies participating.

Dr. Hilary Paul, partner at LGT ILS Partners, on behalf of Lumen Re (Bermuda), added: “We like the approach to quoting on Tremor for certain transactions and find the process extremely efficient. In particular, it's great to be able to offer capacity and get the resulting signed lines the next day! In addition, we find the insight that we gain into the broader market view after the placement is completed to be very interesting and valuable."

Sean Bourgeois, CEO of Tremor, added: “After successfully executing Berkley’s property catastrophe placement last year, it was really exciting to price and place the program this year as Tremor’s first major renewal. We are thrilled with the results. We saw more reinsurers participate, more capacity made available and more capacity authorized with almost no support questions during the quoting process.

“Our advanced quoting features were utilized and despite a hardening market, we were able to find competitive market clearing prices and compute limit allocations in a matter of hours that met everyone’s expectations.”