Look beyond recency bias as property cat softens – MS Re’s Bruniecki

Property catastrophe price reductions are being driven by supply and demand, while perils such as wildfire are becoming more threatening, according to MS Re group chief underwriting officer (CUO) Jörg Bruniecki, who warned against recency bias ahead of the next major renewals.

“I see recency bias in how people view the cat market. The relative absence of major hurricanes since 2023 is creating overconfidence, but risk trends, such as wildfires, are in many respects increasing. There is no technically founded argument why prices should be coming down,” Bruniecki says.

Outcomes at 1 January renewals will depend heavily on loss activity before year-end, but reinsurers should assess performance over a longer horizon, he argues. 

“Long-term success in reinsurance demands a marathon mindset. But human behaviour defaults to the sprint – the short-term reactive response,” he says. “If you win the sprint, you don’t necessarily win the race because you’re running a marathon.”

Understanding trends

From one year to the next, the weather in Europe brings drought and wildfires, or heavy rains and floods, he observes.

“Wildfire exposures are certainly on the rise. Flooding is on the rise. Either it’s too dry, or it has massive flooding exposure,” he says.

Bruniecki took over as group CUO on 1 April 2026 from Charles Goldie, having previously led global specialty lines. Before that he ran international P&C, making the Americas, and particularly US casualty, a major expansion of his remit.

“I always say there is no such thing as US casualty. There are so many compartmentalised parts within this market,” he says. “Financial lines are very different from commercial auto, which is very different from general liability.”

That requires granular analysis of whether rate increases are outpacing loss trends, as well as careful client selection.

“You need to understand the trends in each class, and then be client selective in understanding who you support and who you don’t support, because the performance is pronounced according to the quality of primary underwriting,” he says.

Subject to change

Turning strategy into execution, Bruniecki describes portfolio management as an “inner compass” guiding where MS Re grows, holds its position or reduces exposure.

“I call one part to this the inner compass, which is the understanding of a portfolio today, and this portfolio is subject to changes in loss trends, in what’s happening in terms of pricing in the market, and potential structural changes to the reinsurance structures clients are buying,” he says.

“Analysing how your current portfolio is moving through the cyclical development, and what trends are affecting it, gives you a view of what you should grow, what you should keep steady, and then what you should shrink where conditions have fallen below technically adequate levels.”

The technical view must be reconciled with the realities of commercial relationships.

“We are in a world where clients have a choice and capital is available at record levels. The question is not only the availability of capital, but the permanence of capital, and that is something we can offer to clients: permanence and a consistent strategy over time,” he adds.

For Bruniecki, a strategic relationship means understanding why a cedant is buying reinsurance, rather than simply what risk it is transferring, whether to manage capital, volatility or a portfolio transition.

“You must understand the journey of the client, and formulate an answer to: ‘How can I help you to be the most successful version of yourself with what I can bring to the table?’” he says.

He describes MS Re’s ambition as becoming both the “first call and the last call” for clients, involved when solutions are being formed and consulted again as placements are finalised.

“Clients expect consistency from their strategic partners, but equally, I can only deliver that if I have a commitment from the client side,” he adds.

Corporate muscles

Goldie shared some advice to Bruniecki when he succeeded him that around half the tasks landing on the CUO desk would be things he had not handled previously. Bruniecki says this had proven accurate, with more committee, board and stakeholder work.

The transition also comes after rapid growth at MS Re. Bruniecki notes the reinsurer has grown from $1.8bn premium to almost $4bn over a period of four years.

“We grew from what I call a big small company to a small big company, which sounds like semantics, but it’s not,” he says. “It’s now about building the MS Re way of doing things, how we run our business and developing those corporate muscles.”

Talent is another focus for him. Bruniecki says almost 30% of the underwriting population could retire over the next three to five years.

“The number one question is: how do you preserve the knowledge of those people and make it not individual knowledge but group knowledge?” he says.

AI can be of major assistance, but Bruniecki sees technology as complementary to underwriting judgement.

“What AI can add is better mining of the facts that we see in the data and then overlaying this with the knowledge of people to make the right conclusions,” he says.

“We have more computing power with AI, but what never goes out of fashion is having a common sense interpretation of what we do with this and then how it translates into our business strategies.”

Walk the walk all year

Ultimately, he says differentiation at renewal is earned through behaviour during the rest of the year, rather than the run up to renewing business.

“If the clock in the time of the year of a reinsurer has 12 hours, we have renewal from 11 to 12. From 12 to 11, we have differentiation,” Bruniecki says. “It’s about walking the talk and delivering on your promises, That is what differentiates you. Too often our industry falls into the trap of being tactical rather than strategic.”