Show Notes
Everyone at Monte Carlo agrees the market is flush. Sebastian Cook, CEO, UK at Howden Re, reckons the abundant capital is the easy bit; the skill is matching it to a client problem worth solving. He joins us on the yacht to explain how the reinsurance conversation moved from the price of a programme to off-balance-sheet capital, and why nobody in the market, his own firm included, has the industrial AI story yet.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: Why record capital and cat bond issuance don't win renewals on their own, and where broker judgement actually earns its keep How to build a value case beyond rate, using attachment points, capital relief and structured or parametric options What reinsurers are really competing on this year, and how to read their relevance pitch before renewal Why alternative capital stopped being the preserve of major multinationals and what that changes for a cedent interrogating its outwards programme while it's still open Where AI is making a real difference in reinsurance today, and where it's still a slide rather than a capability
EPISODE LINKS: Seb's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-cook-b862ba133/ Howden Re: https://www.howdenre.com/
OUTLINE & TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro01:10 Why Seb thinks this market is beautifully poised01:55 What makes a broker stand out when capital is abundant02:55 Past the rate: attachment points, capital relief and parametric options04:02 Why reinsurers are racing to prove relevance before renewal05:02 From the price of a programme to off-balance-sheet capital06:18 Signing off data scientists instead of contract wordings07:06 The honest state of AI in reinsurance08:06 Closing thoughts
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
More from The Reinsurance Podcast
Dame Susan Langley, the first Lady Mayor of the City of London in 800 years and only the third woman to hold the office, has spent a year flying round the world telling people what London’s insurance and reinsurance market actually does. Recorded at Mansion House, this is her case for why the quietest industry in finance needs to find its voice.
Sub-$50bn of first-half cat losses, no hurricanes last year, none so far this year, and rates heading south. Verisk's Rob Newbold boards the TRP yacht at Monte Carlo RVS to explain why reinsurance should still be braced for $171bn of insured catastrophe loss in an average year. Then he gets into what AI is actually doing to cat modelling, from globally correlated models to agents that talk to each other so humans can get on with deciding.
New capital is still queuing up for Lloyd's, but Argenta's Kate Tongue and Robert Flach reckon the smart money is taking its time. On board the Supercede yacht at Monte Carlo RVS, they explain three things: why investors tend to show up a year too late, why a diversified Lloyd's portfolio can rival ILS returns with less risk, and why capital cares less about a syndicate's AI than about who's parameterising it.
Property is softening at a sprint. Casualty is walking, and keeping one eye on US social inflation. On the TRP yacht at Monte Carlo RVS 2026, Lockton Re's Carla Moffett and Sam Sweeney explain why casualty reinsurance won't follow the rest of the market down, and why the brokers worth hiring now do much more than place the treaty.
Rachel Turk, Chief of Performance and Strategy at Lloyd's, explains why the flood of third-party capital is good news only while there's fresh risk for it to chase, and why institutional money might one day walk for reasons that have nothing to do with the insurance cycle. Plus: data centres that want $20bn of cover but not the bill, and why agentic AI underwriting only works if it explains itself in plain English.