RVS 2026 cover story: Building the new Willis Re

Willis Re is building a global reinsurance broker with the geographic reach and product breadth of Willis’s insurance broking business, while using a startup approach to avoid legacy systems and structures that constrain established rivals.

Jim Summers, CEO of global specialties, and John Fletcher, CEO of Willis Re Bermuda, see the current London and Bermuda operations as the opening phase of a much broader expansion.

“You should be looking at us as the advance guard,” Summers tells GR. “We have the infrastructure set already for a much bigger team of brokers than we already are.”

Summers adds: “The ambition of Willis Re is to be the same size and scale by geography and product line that Willis is already. We’ve got the platform to build on, to move to the next stage.”

NO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION NEEDED

The proposition begins, he says, with an operation run by industry specialists, and backed by close integration between broking, analytics, claims and technology. “The first pillar is that we’re a reinsurance business led by reinsurance people, which I think in this day and age is very important,”

Summers says. ‘Connected by design’ is another central theme. This involves interaction with WTW’s insurance consulting and technology arm (ICT) and the wider insurance broking business, while Willis Re builds its own technology architecture.

The distinction is a crucial one, emphasising its greenfield status at turns, and the advantages of a group in other respects. Willis Re’s builders want it to be unshackled by the chains of technology stacks that routinely stifle modernisation elsewhere in the market.

“If you look at every company, they’re looking for a digital transformation, and we’re coming in not needing digital transformation – we just want to set up straight away in the right way,” Summers explains.

New digital infrastructure will connect the pricing, actuarial analysis, catastrophe modelling, CRM, claims and premium processing elements. Summers notes that Willis Re already has its own AI engineers and is seconding a further team from elsewhere in the group.

Bain’s backing, meanwhile, is intended to support the pace of expansion, with Summers emphasising the investor’s experience of rapidly scaling businesses.

“Bain are sophisticated investors in our space. They also have an excellent track record of scaling businesses, as well as strong relationships across the market,” he says. “They are providing the appropriate level of support and engagement as we build our business, which is vital for us.”

BEST IN BERMUDA

Willis Re has initially concentrated on London and Bermuda, with property, retrocession, marine, energy and technical lines among its core areas.

Aviation is due to join in the fourth quarter, alongside trade credit, surety and political risk capabilities, while its Singapore operation is also scheduled to come on stream. “The two obvious areas are London and Bermuda,” Summer says.

“London has got a huge concentration of clients and reinsurers. It’s where we’re headquartered, so that’s our obvious opening market.”

Beyond those markets, Summers sees the US and Europe as essential parts of the next phase – exemplified through the recently announced deal to buy BMS Re’s US business.

“The next market after London and Bermuda will be the US, which is the biggest reinsurance market in the world. That has to be an area of focus for us going forward,” he says.

For Fletcher, leading the Bermuda side of the operation represents both an important launchpad and a test of whether Willis Re can establish itself against large incumbents.

“You can’t be complacent,” he says, adding that Bermuda’s market is showing some bright prospects for growth.

“It’s such a major hub for reinsurance. It’s well-stated that one third of overall global reinsurance capital sits in Bermuda. It absolutely dominates the ILS space, and it’s a huge market and a major hub for property reinsurance.”

Fletcher highlighted the concentration of carriers and capacity as one of the island’s enduring advantages, noting determined buyers can meet dozens of reinsurers walking along Front Street.

Rather than setting a public numerical target for the Bermuda operation, he prefers a more qualitative measure.

“The goal here is when you go around those reinsurance companies in Bermuda asking the question: ‘which is the best reinsurance broker in Bermuda?’ the answer will be Willis Re,” Fletcher says.

“Focus your attention on that, and the business will follow. If you’ve got the best advisory, transactional execution, analytical capabilities, and you have a culture that appeals to Bermuda buyers and clients, then the business will absolutely follow.”

Alternative capital is another area where Fletcher expects Willis Re to be heavily involved. It is already set up for some aspects, such as industry loss warrants, and further build-out in 2027 will add the large traditional catastrophe bond capabilities.

A retrocession broker by background, he described the competition between traditional and alternative reinsurance capital as complementary and productive.

“That competition is crucial for the creativity of our business. Without the competition, we’d be standing still,” he says. “There’s overlap, for sure, but this is a good thing, and this is what our job as brokers is to do: create that competitive tension, find where the overlaps are, get the best price for our clients, and find the best solutions.”

MARINE EXPOSURES

Willis Re’s build-out is taking place against heightened geopolitical volatility, raising questions about whether existing reinsurance structures remain aligned with many of the risks insurers are carrying.

Summers used marine exposures around the Strait of Hormuz as one prominent example, questioning whether traditional excess of loss treaty structures fully respond to accumulation and trapping issues when multiple vessels are exposed.

“When vessels get hit, they’re a single loss, and that’ll normally be within the retention of reinsurance programmes on an excess of loss basis,” he says.

“The marine war underwriters are obviously busy doing a professional job, but they’re rating for a single risk, not for an accumulation. I’m not convinced there’s alignment between the insurance and reinsurance markets just yet, in terms of how you’re pricing and aggregating for accumulation that’s occurred.”

Over 500 ships are trapped in the Arabian Gulf, according to the UN’s International Maritime Organization. These vessels could soon be declared constructive total loss within the next six months, he warned, having been bottled up since March.

Helping make sense of such accumulations, Summers believes that an integrated data architecture should ultimately help Willis Re analyse interconnected exposures more effectively, including how different marine covers interact on a client-by-client basis.

“Because of the way we’re ingesting data and talking to each other all the time, we should be able to do that properly,” he says.

A CULTURE WISH LIST

Fletcher emphasises that technology will not determine success on its own. He puts equal emphasis on culture, collaboration and avoiding silos as the business continues to expand.

“Culture is a word that gets thrown around all too freely in this industry,” he says. “You can’t just say we’ve got a great culture; it requires collaboration and transparency and actually speaking to each other.”

As part of that effort, Willis Re is being built to avoid structures that pull teams into silos, most notably the issue of profit centres, while moving staff between London and Bermuda to strengthen relationships and development.

“We’re absolutely going to avoid silos. It’s very easy to slip into silos,” Fletcher says.

It also has a bearing on recruitment. “We want to hire people that are committed to putting the client first, which is what this is all about, and people who want to prioritise succeeding as a team.”

Both executives want Willis Re to combine the analytical capabilities associated with large brokers with the responsiveness and client attention more often associated with startups and smaller competitors.

“It would be nice if people look at us and think we’re the broking firm that manages to bring those two pieces of the puzzle together,” Fletcher adds.

Click here to read the full digital issue of GR’s RVS special edition 2026.