The topics discussed during these meetings vary greatly. For example, recent discussions included security ratings, the transport sector in the Netherlands and Solvency II.

We also regularly invite external speakers to these meetings, so they can share their vision about issues encountered and envisaged within the reinsurance sector. NRV’s informative meetings are also regularly combined with visits to special locations such as the Railway Museum in Utrecht, the Escher Museum in The Hague, the Amsterdam ArenA, the Gemeente Museum in The Hague and Slot Zeist are among those recently enjoyed.

The insurance company can in-turn also insure (part of) the risk. This is referred to as reinsurance. This therefore spreads the primary risk among a larger number of parties.

Reinsurance improves the insurance sector’s capacity to absorb risks, and permits large and difficult to estimate risks – like natural disasters and environmental damage, which exceed the insurance capacity of individual companies – to still be insured.

In addition, reinsurance allows insurance companies to greatly reduce annual fluctuations in their technical results (received premiums minus claim settlements and reserves) and also to limit the effects of large and unexpected claims, thus protecting the capital and solvency of insurance companies.

This may apply to new or smaller insurance companies in particular, as the size of their portfolios make it more difficult to spread the risk and because they often have insufficient equity capital to withstand unexpected losses.
Fluctuations in technical results can, for example, be caused by:

• The frequency of minor and medium-sized claims;
• Major claims, like a fire at a factory;
• The accumulation of claims originating from a single source, such as a major storm or earthquake.