Alien reinsurers increase share of US market

North America

Alien reinsurers, foreign companies which are not licenced or authorised in the US and therefore not subject to US regulatory and solvency requirements, collected around $62.1bn in premium income from the US market in 2005, a 16.9% increase over the previous year. However, alien companies paid just over double that amount ($123.9bn) in reinsurance claims payments or recoverables to US companies, according to the Reinsurance Association of America’s (RAA) yearly report on the sector. This figure represents a 16.2% increase over 2004. Alien companies’ share of US unaffiliated reinsurance premium rose to 51.8% in 2005. The business written by an alien reinsurer is unaffiliated when it and the ceding company is not part of the same group. The market share of alien and alien controlled US companies grew to 85.4% of US unaffiliated reinsurance premium in 2005.