Downward economy sees cedants seeking “last-minute” reinsurance deals at renewals

The downward economic turn has resulted in a “late” renewal season as of Jan. 1, 2009, with cedants waiting until the last minute to nab the best deal in a hardening market, A.M. Best has noted in an online video.
The full video clip can be seen at: http://www3.ambest.com/ambv/media/video.aspx?rc=152121
“If I could choose a single word that would sum up the entire January 2009 renewal season, it would be ‘unsettled,'” A.M.Best editor Marc Jones says in the video. 
“For one thing it was a very late season,” he explains, adding that many deals were placed in late December, “literally at the last moment.”
“People did in fact wait for the very best possible terms,” he said.
Factors contributing to the desire to find a good deal include the instability of the financial markets and the deteriorating financial situation for many (re)insurers.
In the video, Jones is asked for his observations on rates in the 2009 renewal season. “The market certainly has hardened,” he answered, basing his opinion in part on the quarterly financial results of Willis Aon-Benfield and Guy Carpenter. “It has turned the corner from the previous softness that has been reported for a few years, back to a harder market.”
Still, he said, rates are very much differentiated by area.
He said the U.S. insurance markets have seen rate increases by up to 20% in certain lines. In the United Kingdom and Europe, however, the rate increases were much smaller, more on the order of 5-10% in some lines. “It’s very much a kind of unevened hardness,” Jones said.