Reinsurance panel
The set of reinsurers accepted on a program, selected on financial strength as much as on price.
The panel is the list of reinsurers admitted to write a cedant's program, each with its share and status. Price alone does not set its composition. A security policy sets minimum rating criteria, exposure limits per counterparty and a collateral requirement for non-admitted markets. It also seeks geographic diversification, so that one shock does not hit several signatures at once. The panel addresses credit risk, the main residual exposure of a well reinsured cedant. The cedant has transferred its technical risk. What remains is the risk that the transfer fails to settle when needed, that is precisely after a major event that has weakened the whole market at the same time. Managing the panel means spreading without scattering. Too concentrated, it exposes the cedant to one failure; too scattered, it becomes administratively unmanageable and lets in signatures nobody has genuinely analyzed.
A cedant revises its security policy in 2026: higher minimum rating, a 12 percent cap per counterparty, and full collateral for non-admitted markets. Three reinsurers leave the panel, representing 19 percent of expiring capacity. Replacing them costs 340,000 euros of extra premium, for a maximum single-default exposure cut from 21 to 12 percent of the tower.
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