Bertrand Romagne, CEO International Reinsurance at AXA XL Re, said he sees diversification as one of the best ways to grow.
In an interview with Reinsurance News around the Baden-Baden Reinsurance Meeting 2026, Romagne said AXA XL Re is continuing its strategy of reinforcing relationships with best-in-class insurers across their lines of business, while viewing diversification as one of the best ways to grow.
He outlined the conversations he expects to dominate discussions with clients at this year’s Baden-Baden.
“After the due recalibration we’ve seen over recent years, our focus at 1/1 2027 will be on maintaining a fair, risk reflective pricing framework and preserving the improvements in terms and structure in our contracts. We think these will also be the main areas of conversation at Baden,” said Romagne.
In an increasingly volatile landscape, Romagne emphasised that he is seeing an increase in both supply and demand heading into the 1 January 2027 renewals.
“As uncertainty is very high, cedants want more protection – so while there is growth in supply of capacity, equally there is growth in demand, also supported by elevated loss activity,” he explained.
On the property market, Romagne said he expects to see a disciplined but competitive environment, in line with wider market expectations of abundant capacity and strong competition contributing to a softening property reinsurance market.
“In property, we expect a competitive but broadly disciplined environment. Both rate and loss trends continue to matter and we will apply our underwriting standards to the business,” affirmed Romagne.
In the global casualty reinsurance market, reinsurers continue to maintain underwriting discipline amid persistent pressure from social inflation, adverse loss development and third-party litigation funding.
“In casualty, uncertainty remains elevated, particularly around longtail exposures and social inflation,” noted Romagne.
He highlighted that the reinsurance market remains attractive, but rate and loss trends are having an impact. Romagne stated that AXA XL Re “aims to provide consistency of pricing and appetite through the cycle.”
During the interview, Romagne also outlined emerging risks he expects to have the biggest impact over the next three to five years, including the rapid build-out of data centres and the potential aggregation of risks associated with them.
“Data centres are a new risk and we’re engaging with clients and we need to be mindful of aggregation of risk,” he said.
Romagne continued, “Wildfire is the sharp edge of a changing world and a mix of hazard change and exposure growth. We are actively researching the peril to understand and drive change to mitigate future loss.
“The general increased frequency of losses across the board should also really be considered an emerging risk. This can impact rates over time both on the insurance and reinsurance side.”
On the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced technology, Romagne discussed the opportunities and challenges he sees arising from the increased use of AI.
“Whilst digitisation can improve speed and efficiency in some areas of the supply chain there is always the need for human interaction,” he said.
“With AI specifically, when applied responsibly it can be useful,” Romagne added. “But – it’s a balance – we need to make sure that technological progress comes as a support and not a substitution; to our knowledge, our insight and the judgement provided by our underwriting experts.
“Assistance sorting large volumes of unstructured data and has the potential to enhance modelling capabilities.”
