Building on our strengths - Our drive for innovation continues

Last year saw Swiss Re build on its traditional strengths. These included restoring our capital position, de-risking and strengthening our balance sheet and maintaining the strong earnings power of our core business.

Responding to clients' needs

The strong fundamentals of our business and our restored capital base put us in a leading position to respond to clients’ needs and current market trends.

Innovation

Our drive for innovation continues to underpin our client orientation and strong reputation. In 2009, we were the first reinsurer to provide longevity risk protection for a local authority pension fund in the UK. We worked with the World Bank  to combine earthquake and hurricane risk based on parametric triggers in an insurance-linked securitisation for the Mexican government. In addition, we provided catastrophe reinsurance coverage for Beijing’s government-subsidised agricultural insurance scheme. Furthermore, we continued to strengthen our position in Sharia-compliant insurance through the establishment of a dedicated Retakaful operation in Kuala Lumpur.

Our competitive advantage

Few reinsurers can match the size and diversification of our portfolio. Fewer still can rival our underwriting performance, ability to innovate, and to provide the capacity to conduct large transactions. It is on these strengths that we build our competitive advantage.