Large European insurer Zurich took advantage of the “favourable price environment” at the April renewals and secured global aggregate reinsurance cover for lower layers, leveraging alternative, collateralised, and traditional capacity, Claudia Cordioli, Zurich Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO), said on today’s earnings call.

After reporting a solid set of Q1 2025 results, with growth in gross written premiums (GWP) in its Property & Casualty (P&C) segment, Zurich held an earnings call during which CFO Cordioli discussed the firm’s reinsurance buying.

“We’ve been buying in January an additional top layer on top of the usual programme for $100 million of capacity. And then the second thing which we’ve done in April, taking advantage of the good underwriting, obviously, from the Zurich team, but also the favourable price environment, we’ve been buying a global aggregate that will protect us in lower layers, for intuitively I would say 1-in-4, 1-in-5 type of scenarios,” said Cordioli.

The global, European headquartered insurer stopped renewing its aggregate reinsurance cover back in 2023, a time when the reinsurance market was hardening after consecutive heavy loss years, with less appetite from sellers for lower layers and aggregate covers in an effort to move away from frequency type losses.

But as noted by Cordioli, conditions have been more favourable to buyers so far in 2025 with some softening seen at the January and April reinsurance renewals, notably for loss-free property and property cat business.

Expanding on the aggregate coverage secured at 1.4, the CFO stated: “I think it’s a testament to the really great underwriting by the Zurich team, and in particular, the progress that has been made in the US with respect to the cat exposure. But it’s also a fact that we’ve been able to negotiate in the current favourable environment also the aggregate cover, which is a very positive step.”

During the call, Cordioli confirmed that the aggregate protection covers all the geographies and attaches at $850 million on a global level.

“We were able to place it the way we wanted it, so leveraging both alternative capacity, collateralized capacity and traditional reinsurance. So, it’s quite an innovative deal and I’m very happy about that,” she said.

Adding: “I think we’re very well equipped with the additional cat aggregate, but also the top layers that we bought. So, I feel very comfortable where we are in terms of net catastrophe position.”