Coming out of the January 1 reinsurance renewals, what is one concrete change you made to your property-cat program structure (such as raising attachment points, adding aggregate cover, or locking multi-year capacity) and why? What early impact has that change had on primary rates, retentions, or deal competitiveness in your book?

Coming out of the January 1 renewals, one concrete change I made to our property-cat program was raising the per-occurrence attachment point while adding a modest aggregate cover above it. Instead of paying heavily for lower layers that were getting chewed up by frequency, we accepted more volatility at the working layer and used aggregate protection to cap our downside across the year. The rationale was straightforward. Our loss data over the past two renewals showed that what hurt us most wasn't a single peak CAT event, but multiple mid-sized events stacking up. We were effectively overpaying for protection that responded too early and too often, while still leaving us exposed to earnings volatility. By lifting the attachment, we reduced reinsurance spend meaningfully, and the aggregate gave management comfort that we weren't betting the year on a quiet season. The early impact has been noticeable. On the primary side, we've been able to hold rate discipline without pushing through blunt increases just to cover reinsurance costs. Retentions are clearer and more defensible in underwriting discussions, because teams understand exactly where we're meant to absorb loss and where protection kicks in. That's reduced internal friction on deals. Competitively, it's helped more than I expected. With lower reinsurance drag in the pricing model, we've been able to be sharper on well-modeled risks while still walking away from marginal business. The program feels more intentional now. Instead of buying reinsurance out of habit, we aligned structure with how losses actually emerge in our book, and that's already showing up in cleaner underwriting decisions early in the year.

The hardening reinsurance market trickled down to our construction operations, threatening to spike our overhead. We responded by voluntarily raising the attachment points (deductibles) on our Contractors' All Risk (CAR) and Third-Party Liability policies by 50% for the new year. By absorbing more balance-sheet risk ourselves (increasing retention), we successfully neutralized a quoted 15% premium hike. The early impact on our book of business has been decisive: our project proposals remained price-competitive in Q1 tenders. Competitors who simply accepted the insurance hikes are now submitting bloated bids, allowing us to win on price sensitivity without sacrificing our margins.

I'm not a reinsurance specialist, but sitting in on a January renewal debrief with partners opened my eyes. One conversation stuck with me. They chose to raise attachment points slightly and add a small aggregate layer instead of chasing cheaper headline capacity, which felt odd at first given how tense the market already was. Funny thing is the change calmed conversations downstream. Primary teams stopped overcorrecting on every risk because they understood the guardrails better. Early on, retentions held steadier than expected and a few deals moved faster because pricing explanations were simpler. It wasnt about squeezing rates. It were about predictability. That clarity made the whole book feel more competitive without adding noise.