Market researchers have put Bermuda at the centre of “a secular change in domestic life insurer strategies around capital management and product growth”.

Alirt Insurance Research raises concern that the growth of non-US reinsurance continues unabated. It discusses the implications for the US life insurance and annuity market.

The company models the financial performance trends of life, health, and property and casualty insurers. This work is used by Alirt’s clients to meet due diligence, competitive intelligence and sales/marketing needs.

With regard to US life insurance, the market intelligence researchers have told clients that year-end 2024 regulatory financial statements disclose some interesting findings.

They include:

• US life insurance and annuity reserves ceded to Bermudian-based reinsurers equalled 38 per cent of the total $2.4 trillion reserves ceded by US-based life insurers, up from 26 per cent in 2020

• Bermudian-based insurers accounted for 84 per cent of US life insurance and annuity reserves ceded to all non-US countries as of year-end 2024.

• As of year-end 2024, about 90 per cent of outstanding ceded US life insurance and annuity reserves to Bermuda were from transactions effective 2017 to 2024.

The remarkable growth in non-US reinsurance is further analysed in the balance of the study, including a discussion of:

• The largest Bermuda reinsurer counterparties

• The largest Bermuda reinsurance transactions in 2024 and through July this year

• Recent entrants to the Bermuda life reinsurance market

• The top reinsurance exposures among US life insurers

The study concludes with a discussion of both the benefits and risks of foreign reinsurance utilisation for US life and annuity insurers, and what this ongoing strategy may mean for individual insurers going forward, especially amid recent regulatory developments in the US and Bermuda.