Bermuda's top four hold AM Best ranks as terms tighten

AM Best's annual ranking of the world's 50 largest reinsurers placed four Bermuda-based groups at the top of its non-IFRS table, with Everest Re Group fourth and RenaissanceRe, Arch Capital Group and PartnerRe directly behind, and the four wrote a combined $44.9 billion of reinsurance premiums in 2025, according to the rating agency's report.

The island's weight runs deeper than the top four; AM Best counts 15 Bermudian-domiciled or Bermudian-based groups among its top 50, including Convex, Axis Capital, Allied World, Ascot, Aspen, Hamilton Insurance Group, SiriusPoint, Somers Re and Ark Insurance Holdings.

Hamilton was the report's most visible mover, climbing four places to 29th after reinsurance premiums increased 22.8% to $1.4 billion, and AM Best said the company expanded its footprint in Bermuda while pursuing property, casualty and specialty business.

The rankings rest on 2025 results, a year AM Best describes as one of underwriting discipline, strong investment returns and a relatively mild U.S. hurricane season; even with the California wildfires early last year, which the agency estimates produced about $40 billion of insured losses, the industry stayed profitable. RenaissanceRe's line on the table shows the shape of that year: premiums broadly flat, $1.3 billion of underwriting income and a 25.9% return on equity, while Everest held its fourth-place slot.

The report's outlook is less comfortable. Property-catastrophe reinsurance prices posted their steepest annual decline in at least 25 years at the midyear renewals, and Guy Carpenter's global property-cat rate-on-line index fell 16% year on year at the June and July renewals, a deeper drop than the 12% decline at January 1, according to a separate Marsh McLennan report.

AM Best reads the slide as a transfer of advantage to buyers, who get more coverage and flexibility in policy terms while reinsurers keep building capital and sending rates lower; it separately projects a record $705 billion in capital, a figure this publication reported last week, and says reinsurers are watching rising casualty claims costs, geopolitical risks and the rest of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Capital is still growing while price falls. The soft market is now a terms market; the next margin squeeze will come through retention buy-downs and coverage stretch, not rate cuts, and AM Best's own description of renewals says buyers are getting more coverage and flexibility at the same time the rate-on-line index is falling. The headline number is 16%, and the contract wording is where the actual cost of the cycle will show up.

For the four Bermuda groups, the next ranking matters less than the next renewal. They enter a more competitive market with $44.9 billion of premium on the books and two top-five positions in the non-IFRS table, and their 2025 results show they can underwrite through a California wildfire year and still produce a 25.9% return on equity at RenaissanceRe. The 2026 renewals will test whether the terms they concede give that margin back.

The four groups at the top of Bermuda's table will not lose their positions on the back of a rate index; they will cede the economics, if the cycle runs against them, one retention buy-down and one coverage extension at a time. The rest of hurricane season will say how much of the 2025 margin is left to defend.