The insurance and reinsurance industry is at a crossroads, an expert warned yesterday.

Matthew Britten, managing director, insurance at accountancy and consultancy firm PwC said that market conditions were already driving significant changes — and that the present conditions may be “reflected upon in the future as a key period in the market’s history”.

He was speaking as panellists at the 2013 Bermuda Reinsurance Conference discussed the future of the industry against a backdrop of recession.

Mr Britten said: “There seemed to be broad agreement that while this particular point in the reinsurance market’s history may be remembered for the influx of alternative capital into the market, there are a number of other major forces that will influence the shape and future landscape, including, but not limited to, customers’ expectations and distribution, government intervention and regulation, access to emerging markets, advancement of technology and data analytics.

“The key to success is going to be keeping one step ahead of the market by sustaining an edge in analytics, innovation and the development of new markets and the coverage of new risk types.”

Montpelier Reinsurance president Christopher Schaper said that the need to partner with governments and back efforts in emerging markets with low insurance penetration was underlined by the Typhoon Haiyan tragedy in the Philippines.

He added: “Who’s going to take care of Philippines? Having uninsured losses like that are very significant.”

Panellists also agreed that the influx of money into insurance linked securities (ILS) was a key change in the market.

Jeff Sangster, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Validus Holdings, said: “What’s interesting is that previous game-changing points in the market have been the result of events, whereas this is more of an organic change in the market.

“in a lot of ways it is probably one of the most innovative — it is not reactionary. It also more proactive change in the market to more interesting products that suit the buyers’ needs more so than the traditional markets.” And Andy Perez, chief executive officer and founder of the Horseshoe Group, said that Bermuda’s strength lay in its approach to regulation.

He added: “The beauty of Bermuda is we’ve always fostered innovation and always made innovation possible and simpler and that I think is going to continue being one of our main strengths here.”

The conference at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess was organised by PwC and ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.