Swiss Re

In May 1861, a fire ravages the Swiss town of Glarus, and local insurers, too small, cannot cope with the indemnities. The need for a company to take on insurers' risks leads to the creation, in Zurich in 1863, of the Schweizerische Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, founded notably by Credit Suisse and the insurer Helvetia. Swiss Re became one of the world's two largest reinsurers, with Munich Re, and it is listed on the Swiss stock exchange. It operates in property and life reinsurance, and in corporate insurance. Its institute publishes the sigma series, a reference study on global insurance premiums and losses, whose catastrophe loss estimates are cited every year. It structured catastrophe bonds as early as the 1990s, and its cat bond index (see the dedicated entry) is a benchmark of the ILS market. It went through a serious crisis in 2008, with losses on credit derivatives tied to the subprime crisis and a recapitalization by Berkshire Hathaway, which took a share of the capital. With its reinsurance brand and its capital markets transactions business, it plays the role of structurer for risk transfers: cat bonds, parametric covers, mortality securitization. It is subject to the Swiss Solvency Test.