Access to records clause
A clause granting the reinsurer the right to inspect the cedant's records relating to the treaty.
2026, textbook case: on a cyber treaty, the loss ratio goes from 62 to 141% in two years. Inspecting 180 files shows that 23 losses from one supply chain event had been reported separately, and the statement is corrected by 4.6 million euros. An access to records clause lets the reinsurer inspect, at the cedant's premises, the documents relating to ceded risks and reported claims: underwriting files, adjusters' reports, correspondence and accounting records. It gives practical force to contractual good faith, since the reinsurer underwrites on information it does not produce and handles claims it never sees. It answers the information asymmetry built into reinsurance. With no right of access, the reinsurer has only what the cedant chooses to send. It cannot test a drift in underwriting, a claims grouping that inflates one event, or a questionable allocation between two layers. The friction lies less in the principle than in its limits. Legal privilege over counsel's correspondence is one, the protection of policyholders' personal data another. Then there is whether the right survives a commutation or a declared dispute. Recent wordings settle that last point expressly.
A reinsurer exercises its access rights in 2026 on a cyber treaty whose loss ratio has gone from 62 to 141 percent in two years. Inspection of 180 files shows that 23 claims arising from one supply chain event had been notified separately, below the per risk retention. Correctly grouped, they fall to the per occurrence layer, and the account is restated by 4.6 million euros.
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