2019 Life Reinsurance Survey

For more than 30 years, Munich Re Life US has been conducting an annual survey that exhibits individual and group life data from U.S. and Canadian life reinsurers, on behalf of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Reinsurance Section.

The survey results are based on financial information self-reported by reinsurance entities and include new business production and in-force figures, with reinsurance broken into the following categories:

• Recurring reinsurance: Conventional reinsurance covering an insurance policy with an issue date in the year in which it was reinsured. For purposes of this survey, this refers to an insurance policy issued and reinsured in 2019.
• Portfolio reinsurance: Reinsurance covering an insurance policy with an issue date in a year prior to the year in which it was reinsured or financial reinsurance. One example of portfolio reinsurance would be a group of policies issued during the period 2005–2006, but being reinsured in 2019.
• Retrocession reinsurance: Reinsurance not directly written by the ceding company. Since the business usually comes from a reinsurer, this can be thought of as “reinsurance of reinsurance.”

Individual life results are based on net amount at risk, while the group life results are based on premium. The figures are quoted in the currency of origin, with United States business provided in USD and Canadian business provided in CAD.

While we contact all professional life reinsurers across North America, it is important to note that there may be companies not represented in the results, as they did not respond to the survey. For the first time, RMA has been included in the study. RMA represents Korean Re, Toa Re and other reinsurers, and both 2018 and 2019 numbers for RMA have been presented to enable an accurate year-over-year comparison.

Read the full article to view this year’s results in more detail and examine overall life reinsurance trends.

During 2019, the North American Individual Life reinsurance market experienced a 3% (U.S.) and 10% (CAN) boost in new business volume for recurring Individual Life new business.