Chariot Re completes $1.6bn Japan retrocession, its fourth deal since launch

Chariot Re has completed a transaction covering approximately $1.6 billion of Japanese insurance liabilities, its first deal in that market and its fourth since launching in July 2025, the Royal Gazette Bermuda Re reports.

The agreement takes effect September 30 and is a retrocession agreement with MetLife Reinsurance Company of Hamilton, a Bermudian-based MetLife affiliate. A retrocession is a reinsurer passing some of the risk it has assumed to another reinsurer. It covers Japanese US dollar-denominated whole life and annuity policies with approximately $1.6 billion in account value. The policies were already reinsured by MetLife's Hamilton company, according to the report.

For MetLife, the arrangement forms part of a strategy of using outside investors' capital to support growth in its retirement and asset management businesses, the report says. Chief financial officer John McCallion, who also heads MetLife Investment Management, said: "Third-party capital remains an important lever for us as we continue to grow our retirement and asset management businesses under our New Frontier strategy."

Chariot Re is an independent Class E life and annuity reinsurer co-sponsored by MetLife and General Atlantic, with backing from Chubb and other institutional investors. It draws on the asset management expertise of MetLife Investment Management and General Atlantic. Chief executive Cynthia Smith said the transaction "advances our growth strategy and expands our portfolio to include liabilities from one of the world's largest and most sophisticated life insurance markets." She added that the fourth treaty since launch demonstrates the platform's ability to execute across products, markets and jurisdictions.

Morningstar DBRS put the island's life and annuity sidecar liabilities at $375 billion, four times the level of four years earlier, as this publication reported in September. That reporting framed collateral terms, rather than demand from cedents, as the constraint on how far the sector can keep growing.