LONDON — November 20, 2002. inreon, the Internet-based reinsurance trading platform has announced its 100th member. German broking firm Koenig & Reeker has joined 81 other cedants and brokers from 17 countries across Asia, North America and Europe that have signed membership agreements in order to trade via the platform. In addition there is now a panel of 18 international reinsurers offering capacity online.
Koenig & Reeker was originally founded in 1873 and provides services for all non-life treaty and facultative covers. The company plans initially to use inreon’s catastrophe excess of loss and facultative property products.
“We already have close, well established relationships with reinsurers which we believe can be further enhanced through our membership of inreon,” said Günther Freiherr von Salza, head of Koenig & Reeker.
“It will provide us with a streamlined placement process and improved management information. With 100 members the platform has clearly built a strong momentum within the industry and we are pleased to be a part of it.”
inreon’s membership has grown by more than 185% during 2002. All members of the platform must sign a membership agreement that agrees the rules under which risks are submitted, quoted and bound online. The 100 member companies include a “critical mass” of users in several individual territories.
Seventeen leading reinsurance buyers in Spain have joined, for example, together with reinsurers Mapfre Re and Nacional de Reaseguros. Six of the top seven non-life insurers in the Netherlands are members as are seven of the top eight insurance companies in Taiwan. In the UK inreon has 15 brokers and cedants as members.
“The reinsurance industry is clearly demonstrating its support for a single global exchange that allows for efficient electronic placement and administration of risk,” commented Kaj Ahlmann, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of inreon. “For the concept to succeed it has always been necessary to obtain widespread support across the market. Any e-commerce solution that is unable to attract more than just one or two sponsors and users is doomed to failure.”
Reinsurers trading via inreon include American Re, Converium, Gothaer Re, Hannover Re, Mapfre Re, MAP Underwriting, Munich Re, Nacional de Reaseguros, New Re, Partner Re, Renaissance Re, St Paul Re, SCOR, Swiss Re and Wellington. Together this panel represents more than 50% of capacity available from the world’s top 25 groups. All quotes offered by reinsurers via the platform are binding.
ACORD Certification Gives inreon A Standards First
LOS ANGELES — October 28, 2002. inreon, the Internet-based reinsurance trading platform, has become the first body within the global reinsurance market to be certified by ACORD for implementing risk placement standards. ACORD, the New York-based industry standards body, has certified inreon’s implementation of data standards for facultative reinsurance placement.
The move means that members of the platform can now automatically submit risks to reinsurers as soon as they have the relevant data available in ACORD compliant placement XML structures. Instead of inputting information via the web, data is simply pre-loaded onto inreon templates. Members then only have to review the details and select the reinsurers to whom the business should be sent.
Clem Booth, a member of the board of directors at both inreon and ACORD and a member of the Board of Management for Munich Re, commented: “The future of electronic trading in the reinsurance industry will be much brighter thanks to the combined efforts of inreon and ACORD. Universal and effective data standards will help make sure the reinsurance sector fully benefits from the advantages offered by e-trading.”
Kaj Ahlmann, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of inreon added: “ACORD is the insurance industry’s global leader in XML standards for electronic data sharing. This pioneering certification of inreon’s placement standards shows the platform is leading the way in establishing a streamlined, automated and highly efficient electronic placement process for the reinsurance sector.”
Further collaboration between ACORD and inreon is planned to continue the implementation of the industry SOAP XML message handling standard in the context of the ACORD Reinsurance Framework pilot project. In addition to ongoing work at the placement end of the reinsurance process, there will also be a focus on back office administration services. This will include standards governing both contract confirmation issues and technical accounting.
“The certification of inreon’s work on implementing placement standards represents an important step forward,” declared Gregory Maciag, President and Chief Executive Officer of ACORD. “Adopting such standards has the potential to save the industry millions of dollars every year by reducing work duplication, improving accuracy and eliminating ambiguous communication exchanges.”
As a global trading platform with around 100 members across the US, Europe and Asia, inreon is uniquely positioned to aid the implementation of standards which offer enormous potential benefits for the exchange of data across company boundaries. Efficiency improvements can be made in many different areas of the reinsurance process, for example in the structuring of risks, placement and the migration of data into new systems following an acquisition.
Tags: ACORD, RenaissanceRe
