Global reinsurance intermediary Guy Carpenter releases his Reinsurance renewal report for January 1, 2026, Outlines a cyber renewal season defined by rigorous enforcement, competitive pricing conditions and continued structural innovation, particularly in cyber reinsurance.
According to the report, transfer commissions generally range between flat and two percentage points higher, while non-proportional rates fall by about 2.5% to as high as 25%, depending on structure, loss experience and tier positioning. Despite these conditions, capacity remains available and responsive, allowing updates to be completed in a timely manner.
Although reinsurance brokers have observed steady growth in demand for non-proportional protection, retention rates have been essentially unchanged. A number of new structures were successfully implemented on 1 January, including Excess of Exposure (XoL) coverage, hard roll cession arrangements and comprehensive property and cyber tail plans.
Cedents also continue to diversify their reinsurer panels and have shown a greater willingness to explore new retrocession purchases. In many cases, savings from core allocations are redeployed to other areas of the business to enhance overall portfolio protection.
In the online market, renewal season brought tangible improvements in favor of cedants. Guy Carpenter reports that terms and conditions continue to improve, with particular progress being made towards broadening definitions and improving contract clarity. Most cyber placements advance efforts to address concurrency challenges and enhance consistency in treaty wording, increasing confidence in contractual certainty and claims responsiveness.
The report highlights a clear shift away from heavy reliance on quota shares and aggregate stop-loss structures towards more tailored solutions to better deal with volatility and accumulation risk. Loss underwriting risk excess gained further momentum on January 1, 2026, with the completion of a number of new placements in Guy Carpenter’s Global Networks practice. This reflects a more targeted approach to cyber risk transfer, more closely aligning protection with the underlying risk profile.
Structural innovation remains a central theme of the renaissance. Guy Carpenter launched the first GC Cyber ​​XXL product on January 1st, introducing a hard roll ceding structure that provides excess loss protection to the underlying XoL treaty portfolio.
At the same time, with the support of constructive conditions from buyers, the loss warranty capacity of the transfer industry has expanded. GC step-up total cover also continues to attract interest based on developments in 2025, which offers an effective upfront premium that triggers a step-up once a defined loss rate is reached.
Another noteworthy development was the development of the first joint property and cyber loss excess treaty. Guy Carpenter points out that this structure is particularly effective at the extreme tail, where minimum online rate requirements may limit the value of independent network purchases. By consolidating exposures, cedants gain more effective tail protection, while reinsurers benefit from broader diversification and more flexible capital allocation.
Guy Carpenter says these advanced structures bring clear benefits to both sides of the market. Ceders gain greater flexibility in managing capital, volatility and accumulation risk, while reinsurers gain better tools to support line size growth and portfolio diversification.
The growing interest in non-proportional and total solutions reflects the market becoming more precise and responsive in risk transfer methods, driven by closer collaboration between intermediaries, cedants and reinsurers.
The report also puts recent cyber incidents into a broader context. High-profile incidents, including the Jaguar Land Rover attack, have exposed vulnerabilities and under-insurance in interconnected business ecosystems, with supplier disruptions on a scale that in some cases required financial intervention from governments.
Even events that result in limited insured losses, such as major cloud service outages and ransomware attacks on key vendors, illustrate how cyber disruptions can spread through supply chains, causing widespread operational and economic consequences.
Guy Carpenter concluded that these events continue to highlight the huge gap between economic cyber losses and insurance recoveries. As cyber risks become increasingly interconnected across industries and geographies, reinsurance, supported by innovative structures and rigorous design, can play a key role in closing this gap and making the global economy more resilient.
