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It is a good time to be a reinsurer. For the first time in years, reinsurers are talking about a hard market and capacity shortages.

But a rising tide does not, in this case, lift all boats equally.

In the short term, underwriting conditions are challenging due to multiple forms of inflation and because exposures such as cyber and the impact of climate change are hard to quantify.

Longer term, operating models and technology stacks are under strain as companies become larger and more complex. Executives must combine the art of underwriting with the graft of organisational and technology change to win.

Our experienced team helps executives find their edge by understanding the future of the industry, identifying solutions and delivering on their priorities.

WE CONNECT C-SUITE DECISION-MAKING WITH PRACTICAL, STRATEGY-DRIVEN CHANGE

Strategy: We help management teams understand their options and trade-offs and make robust decisions.

Operations: We use our industry expertise to build detailed, bespoke operating models and processes aligned to the specific features of your strategy.

Technology: We recognise that technology is a fundamental shaper and enabler of modern strategy and support with architecture design and vendor selection.

Strategic transformation: We help organisations transform by connecting strategy to delivery, ensuring that delivery both aligns to strategy and shapes it.

WHAT WE DO IN REINSURANCE

Strategy

We help executive teams understand and prioritise opportunities and threats, find their “edge” and communicate compellingly to their stakeholders.
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Operations

We help executive teams build robust, scalable businesses and operating models, covering organisation design, key processes and governance.
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Technology

We help business executives understand how technology can boost their productivity, and technology executives build and deliver technology strategies and roadmaps aligned to strategic imperatives as well as helping them select vendors.
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Transformation

We help executive teams execute on their priorities by supporting them through a continuous cycle of strategic decision-making and detailed design and delivery.
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M&A

We help investors and corporates with commercial, operational and technology due diligence, deal preparation and execution, and post merger integration.
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OUR LATEST INSIGHTS

Oxbow Partners launches suite of tools for reinsurance market insight and strategic planning

Oxbow Partners launches suite of tools for reinsurance market insight and strategic planning

Competitor, portfolio and cedent insights for P&C reinsurance

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Shanghai Global Reinsurance Platform

Shanghai Global Reinsurance Platform

What does the platform do and what does it mean for reinsurers?

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Reinsurance operating models: Do you have a post-bind issue?

Reinsurance operating models: Do you have a post-bind issue?

Eight tell-tale signs you have a post-bind operating model issue

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More insights

EXAMPLE ENGAGEMENTS

Transformed an underwriting organisation

A leading reinsurer wanted to reinvent their underwriting organisation to eliminate pain points and harness future opportunities in digital. We supported the client through a multi-year transformation programme that addressed both soft and hard aspects of their operating model design.

Rethought a post-bind operating model

A leading reinsurer identified that their post-bind operations had developed organically leading to challenges with scalability. We supported the client to develop a new, deliberate global operating model. This led to improvements in both efficiency and quality, which are the foundations to support future scale.

Developed a global innovation and digital strategy

A large reinsurer wanted to develop a global innovation and digital strategy. We worked with the CEO and board members to develop a strategy which is currently being delivered

Created a ‘break-out’ growth strategy

A reinsurance client had a robust footprint in their home region but limited traction in other markets. We supported the CEO to identify where they could develop ‘edge’ and how to access new sources of business.

Built a technology operating model

A large reinsurer had developed a proprietary technology platform but found the technology team had become detached from the underwriting team as the business had scaled. We supported the business to build a better technology operating model, which was subsequently implemented, connecting IT with the business.

Redesigned management information

A leading reinsurer wanted to rationalise the information used in the business and build standardised reporting driven by ‘golden sources’. We helped the client identify metrics to run the business, defined how to source the right data and developed the governance required to deliver the insight.

Oxbow Partners work helping us understand the likely impacts of GIPP on the home insurance market was key to our investment decision

Duncan Ramsay, Partner, ECI

We loved Oxbow Partners’ deep insurance expertise and collaborative approach as it resulted in a practical operating model with global buy-in. They challenged us to stretch our thinking and we now have greater confidence in execution.

Garance Wattez-Richard, CEO, AXA Emerging Customers

Oxbow Partners used their impressive knowledge of the UK retail insurance market to help us develop our strategy and create a detailed but pragmatic operating model. The team brought a strong, results-driven approach but also worked collaboratively and collegiately with our team.

Amir Goshtai, Financial Services Director, JLP

Oxbow Partners supported us on the CDD of a fast-growing InsurTech. We really valued their deep sector knowledge and pragmatic approach. Over a two-week period, the team helped us to quickly understand the opportunity and competitor landscape, and the complexities of the target’s business model and potential risks.

Marco Cazzola, Investment Director, Kyron (Ardonagh)

We valued Oxbow Partners’ insight into the reinsurance industry and collaborative approach highly when we were defining our Group strategic initiatives.

Jean-Jacques Henchoz, Group CEO, Hannover Re

Oxbow Partners combines granular expertise and a truly global perspective of this rapidly evolving, complex set of issues. Most importantly, however, I found the Oxbow Partners to be good listeners, collaborative and open minded; in sum, ideal partners.

Stephen Weinstein, former Chair, Bermuda Business Development Agency

“Oxbow Partners’ extensive knowledge of the industry and vendor landscape allowed us to quickly identify a technology partner to support our growth ambitions.”

Marianne Harvey, COO, AEGIS London

Working with Oxbow Partners felt like a partnership. The team are adept at balancing strategic thinking with a clear understanding of the content and can engage a senior team to gain consensus on a complex topic

Sean McGovern, CEO AXA XL UK & Lloyd’s

RELEVANT PRODUCTS

Competitor Insights

Our Competitor Insights tool is an online tool to see bespoke performance data and analysis of P&C Re players. It currently contains c.70% of global P&C market with 10+ years of historic data and is the cleanest P&C reinsurance data available in the market, collected and validated by Oxbow Partners.
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Portfolio Insights

Our portfolio Insights tool is an online to understand US and European ceded P&C pools. It allows executives to test client & portfolio strategy against market trends. The tool includes proprietary analysis driven by S&P Capital IQ data and views by COB and cedent.
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Cedent Insights

Our quarterly Cedent Insights provides reviews of largest cedents in global marketplace. Based on range of sources, it allows executives to identify opportunities and risks and prepare more efficiently for meetings.
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Magellan

Magellan is our insurance technology navigator. Magellan contains detailed information on over 4,000 technology vendors targeting the global (re)insurance market. Magellan is designed to help business and technology professionals find the right short-list of companies to help with their specific technology requirements. We offer both a self-service subscription and a ‘Curated Search’ service delivered by our dedicated team of experts.
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Lead contact

Chris Sandilands ACII, Partner

Chris leads engagements across strategy and transformation, focusing most of his time on global reinsurance and UK & Ireland retail insurance.

Chris started his career at Munich Re where he was a D&O underwriter. During this time, he gained his ACII qualification. He then moved into consulting, where he has spent 20 years advising (re)insurance management teams around the world on topics including strategy development, operating model redesign, governance optimisation, underwriting transformation and innovation. Chris lives in London and spends a lot of his time with clients in Bermuda and Continental Europe.

Chris frequently authors Oxbow Partners papers and articles. He was the lead author on our InsurTech Impact 25 series. He is a dual British and Austrian citizen and speaks fluent German.

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Lead contact

Miqdaad Versi, Partner and Head of Sustainability

Miqdaad leads engagements on strategy, operating model transformation and sustainability for some of the world's largest (re)insurers. He leads the Oxbow Partners Sustainability practice and is a thought leader in this area, having authored a number of Oxbow Partners publications in the space, regularly contributing to client and industry events as well as press articles.

Graduating with a first class degree in Mathematics from the University of Oxford, Miqdaad has a strong technical skillset, allowing him to dig beneath the surface to uncover the real problems facing the executive teams with whom he is working. He balances strategic and market knowledge with pragmatism to drive towards solutions that deliver for his clients.

He has worked with executive teams at insurers, reinsurers and industry bodies in the UK, Europe and Bermuda on strategy development, value proposition definition and optimisation, underwriting transformation and thought leadership.

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Lead contact

George Hanks, Principal

George oversees projects across strategic, operational and technology topics and spends most of his time working with specialty and reinsurance clients.

George joined Oxbow Partners as a consultant following completion of his first-class degree in Economics and Philosophy. On his journey to principal, he has worked on many of Oxbow Partners’ most challenging and high-profile projects. These projects include developing a group-wide strategy for a global reinsurer, completing an end-to-end target operating model review for a leading (re)insurer and developing smart follow strategies for multiple syndicates.

You can find George’s writing on his areas of focus on the Oxbow Partners blog, as well as in the trade press.

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