Reinsurance buyers demand progress on electronic trading

Some of the most influential reinsurance buyers in the market made clear their frustration at the lack of progress in the use of electronic trading. Speaking at the World Insurance Forum, Nicholas Michaelides, global director reinsurance, ACE said he found any resistance to the notion that an electronic system of binding offer and acceptance was desirable to be “extraordinary”. He went on to call for real progress within the market arguing that it wasn’t good enough to, “park the problem in India and call it progress.” Christian Milton, vice president AIG agreed that the numerous failed systems had not to addressed the needs of buyers but said his own company had spend $35 million on revamping systems to enable it to communicate electronically with reinsurers. He said in the US the aim was to enable reinsurers to view the detail of agreements so it could carry out electronic audits online. “Currently the cost of reinsurers coming in to do audits of the paper process is considerable,” he said.

Michael Cady, managing director, Guy Carpenter and Company argued that Treaty business has too many complexities to be handled only using electronic systems and said there would always be the need