Hi everyone, we have a brand new podcast episode where I am speaking to Tim Smith of Hannover Re about reinsurance and how it mixes with the wider insurance sector. 

As a protection insurance adviser I found it really weird to suddenly realise that there is an insurer that backs the insurers that I arrange policies with. Granted this was quite a while ago now, but it was a little bit after I started my career that this was pointed out to me. Coming from a purely protection insurance space and not being an adviser as my starting job, I only learned about this once I started to experience quite strong premium loadings for clients. We would challenge decisions and the insurers would say, sorry it’s what the reinsurers are telling us to do.

I think that there are probably quite a few people who don’t understand how reinsurers and insurers work, both from within our industry and outside of it too. Quite often I explain it to clients and I’ve yet to meet one who knew about this interplay already.

The key takeaways:

• Reinsurers set the core underwriting manuals that insurers then use to build their own philosophies.
• Reinsurers are a vital part of the insurance industry as they hold the majority of the financial risk, enabling insurers to offer protection insurance to more and more people.
• Risk pooling in group, genetics and potentially socio-economic groupings are key areas for ongoing debate.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me and will be talking about getting insurance when you have schizophrenia.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.