The 2020 renewal season has been a sombre affair on many fronts, not least because it has involved virtual negotiations in this new normal where underwriters, brokers and cedants thrash out pricing and terms over Zoom, Teams and Google Meet.

The 2020 renewal season has been a sombre affair on many fronts, not least because it has involved virtual negotiations in this new normal where underwriters, brokers and cedants thrash out pricing and terms over Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. In an industry that prides itself on relationships, it has also lacked the usual combination of business socialising at annual meetings in Monte Carlo and Baden Baden.

At a time when the market is hardening and uncertainty over the COVID impact remains, the inability to agree pricing and terms and conditions eyeball to eyeball has proved a challenge for many market participants.

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Where relationships already exist, the shift to renewal meetings via video conferencing was not a huge stretch, according to the participants at our virtual roundtable discussion in October (page 22). It is more that new relationships are difficult to build and nurture in a half hour on Zoom, they said. And younger executives (who haven’t experienced a hard market during their career) are unable to learn the tricks of the trade.

It has not been easy, but the industry has risen to the challenge of the new normal. Different personalities responded differently - some better than others - and remote working is not for everyone. But it seems unlikely - even after the threat of COVID-19 has completely passed - that the industry will ever go back to the way it was.

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