Eric Andersen, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of global insurer AIG, expects the carrier to find a good balance between some of the front-end pressures in the insurance/" style="color:#c0392b;font-weight:700;text-decoration:underline;" class="hta-topic-link">property insurance space and the ability to save money on its reinsurance buying at the January 1 renewals.
Following the release of a strong set of third quarter and nine month 2026 results, AIG’s leader responded to questions from analysts about the firm’s reinsurance program ahead of the 1.1 renewals, and also when he feels property pricing could get to a floor amid the expectation of further softening absent a truly meaningful loss event, or series of events.
Andersen explained that AIG’s reinsurance program has always been viewed as a very strategic and critical part of its growth strategy, a message often shared by his predecessor, Peter Zaffino, who placed a lot of emphasis on buying reinsurance to hedge against volatility, as one analyst put it.
“We like the program where it is,” said Andersen. “We are going to look at tweaks, obviously, to take advantage of either market pricing or areas where we think we can retain more risk. But ultimately, how we view reinsurance as a major supporter of how we look to grow and deploy capital hasn’t fundamentally changed.”
Back in February, Zaffino, while still CEO of the company, said he was very pleased with the outcome of AIG’s 1.1 2026 reinsurance renewal, when the firm achieved enhanced terms and favorable pricing. It was a similar story the prior year, and even further back, in 2023, Zaffino emphasised that building long-term strategic relationships with reinsurance partners was a key part of the firm’s repositioning.
Clearly, AIG’s reinsurance strategy has played a pivotal role in its journey to become a leading global P&C underwriter, and with conditions expected to remain favourable for buyers at the upcoming 1.1 renewals, Andersen expects the company to benefit from further cost savings.
“As a buyer of reinsurance, I think we’re going to see opportunities to save money, and I think it’ll give us some real tactical choices to make… Strategically, as you look at our portfolio, it was built to manage our volatility. We were able to capture some savings in 2026 without having to make any real fundamental changes in terms of the risk profile, and I think that opportunity might be in front of us again as we work through the marketplace and the 1.1 renewals with our partners,” he said.
“So, I think we’re going to get a good balance between some of the front-end pressure and some of the ability to save money on some of the reinsurance support,” added Andersen.
This front-end pressure relates to the property insurance market, and specifically a question from an analyst around when the CEO expects the market could get to a floor in terms of property pricing, given continued price declines are expected.
Andersen explained that “you are seeing it play all the way through from retail property, E&S property, into reinsurance property, and it has been really just the balance, as you know, of a lack of significant losses and excess capital and new capital that’s trying to get into the market.”
“As we approach it, though, we are seeing pricing pressure across North America, as we talked about, and a little bit in international. International is currently a little bit better than North America, and we do see opportunities for growth in international.
“But the key in this will be how do you maintain the disciplined underwriting, and the rate adequacy and the terms and conditions, and the attachments and the limit management. All the things that you know we’ve been working on over the last five years, really comes home as a critical function when you’re in a market like this,” he said.
