Alongside its full-year 2025 results, QBE has also provided an update on its January 1, 2026, reinsurance renewal, where it secured a further reduction in retentions on its main catastrophe reinsurance tower amid favourable market conditions.
QBE CFO Chris Killourhy said his firm delivered another strong and sustainable reinsurance outcome at the renewal, adding that QBE’s diversification across regions and lines of business makes it a highly sought-after proposition in the market.
Killourhy added, “Given the support of our strong reinsurer relationships, we were again able to reduce the attachment point of our cat program now to $250 million, that’s a reduction of almost 40% in just two years.
“This is at a time when, in the market more generally, attachment points and terms and conditions are rarely moving. Ultimately, we see this as strong external validation of our approach to portfolio management and the initiatives we’ve executed to reduce problematic exposures.”
Readers may recall that at the January 1, 2025, renewal, QBE’s main catastrophe reinsurance retention fell by $100 million year-on-year to $300 million, which the firm attributed to portfolio optimisation initiatives.
In the US, the retention reduced from $350 million at the January 1, 2024, renewal to $300 million for 2025, while in Australia it declined to $260 million from $325 million last year.
For the rest of the world, QBE’s retention dropped to $135 million for 2025, compared with $250 million in 2024, completing a broad-based reduction across its major regions.
At January 1 2026, the Australian insurer continued this trend and reduced the attachment of its main catastrophe excess-of-loss reinsurance treaty to $250 million for the US and Australia.
For the rest of the world, the main cat XoL reinsurance treaty now attaches at $200 million, with some differentiation and as low as $100 million for Asia Pacific and Latin America.
You can see this in detail in the diagram below:
According to QBE, 2025 underscored the resilience of its underlying business settings, a position further strengthened by the “pleasing outcome” achieved at the 2026 reinsurance renewal.
“These strong, and much improved foundations will support more consistent and predictable outcomes,” QBE added.
QBE CEO Andrew Horton commented on the January 1 2026 reinsurance renewal, “We achieved quite significant savings on the new program, and our cat budget will be a touch lower year-over-year.”
“Through the recent reinsurance renewal, we’re also able to lower the retention for our risk excess of loss cover.
“The coverage would generally attach for non-cat large claims of $50 million previously, and in many instances, that is now just $25 million. This will help manage large claim volatility.”
QBE’s simplified 2026 reinsurance programme is shown below:
