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Aon launches tool to flag risk before insurers add capacity. Carriers can examine prospective business against existing accumulations before making underwriting decisions. Aon has launched a new analytics tool to help insurers assess how potential new business could affect their existing risk portfolios before deploying capacity. Underwriting Analytics, part of Aon's Risk Analytics Platform, allows (re)insurers to assess new risks against existing accumulations and support decisions on underwriting, portfolio management and capital allocation. Join Insurance Asia community The tool provides risk assessments at location, policy and portfolio levels. It uses Aon's Global Hazard Scores, supported by its Impact Forecasting catastrophe modelling team, to identify concentrations and emerging exposures. Insurers can also assess individual locations based on factors including building characteristics and susceptibility to hazards. This is designed to help them identify growth opportunities whilst staying within their risk appetite. The launch comes as insurers prepare for the reinsurance renewal season, with the tool intended to link underwriting and reinsurance decisions. "Growing premium, but adding the right premium in a way that matches an insurer's unique risk appetite and drives profitable growth is harder," said George Attard, Aon's chief strategy officer and global head of analytics, reinsurance. Underwriting Analytics is delivered through Aon's Risk Analytics Platform, which combines catastrophe data, vendor models and Aon's own insights in a model-agnostic environment. The platform is also integrated with Aon's Event Analytics and is set to add further capabilities focused on digital infrastructure exposures.

Competitive conditions reinforce facultative as vital part of reinsurance strategy: Aon. Why facultative reinsurance is moving from a tactical purchase to a strategic growth tool for insurers, explains the global CEO of facultative at Aon's Reinsurance Solutions. Key points: Clients using fac as strategic growth tool Facilities bridge certainty, flexibility and growth Digital capabilities reduce friction, drive adoption Facultative reinsurance is becoming a more strategic part of insurers' growth plans as they look to expand without putting excessive strain on their balance sheets. That's the view of Nick Fraccalvieri, global head of facultative at Aon's Reinsurance Solutions. He says insurers can use fac not simply to cover individual risks, but as a way to support growth while managing the additional exposure that expansion creates. "Every time they do that [expand], they expose the balance sheet a little bit more than is perhaps desirable," Fraccalvieri told Monte Carlo Today. "The best way to grow efficiently is by buying facultative and utilising it as a lever to continue to grow and mitigate exposures, and not to overload the company's balance sheet." With competition across the insurance and reinsurance markets intense and reinsurers continuing to report profitable combined ratios, Fraccalvieri said fac capacity was plentiful and the cost of cover "quite competitive". Bringing fac and treaty together Aon is encouraging clients to think about treaty and facultative strategy together as they approach renewals rather than treating the two as separate purchasing decisions. Fraccalvieri said clients preparing for 2027 renewals could set their treaty strategy knowing that facultative capacity was available to manage certain exposures separately. "Aon is in a great position to help our clients consider all forms of capital, and so we can work with them beyond just a single transaction to develop an optimal risk transfer strategy that aims to respond with flexibility to all their needs and become an enabler of top line growth," he said. "Those who view risk transfer in this way will be thinking how to utilise facultative in connection with treaty, and also with insurance-linked securities and parametric solutions." he added. The approach allows insurers to consider where individual risks could be removed from the treaty programme and handled facultatively, or via another form of capital, giving them another lever as they decide how to deploy their capital and pursue growth. Aon is also seeing growing interest in cedent facultative facilities that allow cedants to secure facultative capacity and agree terms and counterparties in advance to provide flexible access to cover, rather than renegotiating new transactions throughout the year. Such facilities can allow clients to "crystallise the counterparty", keep the same reinsurer throughout the year and gain greater control over what they buy, Fraccalvieri said. To help promote this risk transfer strategy, Aon recently launched an insight series focused on the value facilities bring to insurers, which was shared with over 25,000 clients and resulted in more than 17,000 subscribers. "With facilities we can structure bespoke solutions, from single product and geography, to complex multi-line and global solutions.," he added. Fraccalvieri said that Aon's scale, analytics, and global relationships and insights are key in driving the development of innovative solutions, pointing to the 1,000+ colleagues Aon has working on facultative across more than 40 offices globally, who help with the intermediation of upwards of $6 billion in fac premium. "I don't think there are many brokers that can sit down with their clients and articulate a full global facility that is aligned to their particular needs," he noted. Removing the friction One obstacle to wider use remains the administrative intensity of facultative placements. "It's very frictional, very intense in terms of management," Fraccalvieri said. Aon is seeking to digitise more of the placement process. From January 2027, its trading platform is expected to be able to ingest client information regardless of the format in which it arrives. By mid-to-late 2027, the broker hopes the technology will further help guide brokers towards markets suited to particular products and risks. "As we remove friction, as we make it more efficient, the benefits will be felt by our clients, who will be even more attracted to facultative capacity as a result," he said. Data shaping strategy Data generated through placements is also giving Aon a broader view of clients' portfolios, including where they are writing business, the classes involved and whether exposures are primary or excess, property or casualty. Some clients do not collect or analyse their information in the same way, Fraccalvieri said, allowing Aon in some cases to provide a portfolio-level view they do not have themselves. That data can also help identify market trends earlier and adjust advice as conditions change. "The quicker we can adapt, the quicker we can advise our clients to do the right thing at the right time," he said. For him, the underlying proposition comes back to growth. Insurers need to continue looking for new opportunities without allowing expansion to place excessive strain on their balance sheets. "There are two ways to do that - either you expose your balance sheet into the unknown, or you utilise facultative as a way to mitigate that exposure, he said." Nick Fraccalvieri is the global CEO of facultative at Aon's Reinsurance Solutions. He can be reached at: [email protected] Editor's picks. 5 September 2026 4 September 2026 3 September 2026