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. Its composition is not driven by price alone: a security policy sets minimum rating criteria, exposure limits per counterparty, a collateral requirement for non-admitted markets, and geographic diversification designed to stop one shock hitting several signatures at once. The problem it solves is credit risk, which is the main residual exposure of a well reinsured cedant: it has transferred its technical risk, and 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 simultaneously. Managing the panel therefore means spreading without scattering: too concentrated and it exposes the cedant to one failure; too scattered and 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.
Reinsurance panel, Panel, Marché souscripteur, Security panel