Guy Carpenter, a global reinsurance intermediary, has released its January 1, 2026 Reinsurance Renewal Report, outlining a cyber renewal season defined by disciplined execution, competitive pricing conditions and continued structural innovation, particularly in cyber reinsurance.
According to the report, ceding commissions generally settled between flat and up to two percentage points higher, while non-proportional rates fell by roughly 2.5% to as much as 25%, depending on structure, loss experience and layer positioning. Despite these conditions, capacity remained available and responsive, supporting timely completion of renewals.
Retentions were largely unchanged, although the reinsurance broker observed steadily increasing demand for non-proportional protection. A number of new structures were successfully placed at January 1, including risk excess of loss (XoL) covers, hard retrocession arrangements, and combined property and cyber tail programmes.
Cedents also continued to diversify their reinsurer panels and showed greater willingness to explore new retrocession purchases. In many cases, savings achieved on core placements were redeployed into other lines of business to strengthen overall portfolio protection.
In the cyber market, the renewal season delivered tangible improvements in favour of cedents. Guy Carpenter reports that terms and conditions continued to improve, with particular progress made in expanding definitions and improving contractual clarity. Most cyber placements advanced efforts to address concurrency challenges and enhance wording consistency across treaties, reinforcing confidence in contract certainty and claims responsiveness.
The report highlights a clear shift away from heavy reliance on quota share and aggregate stop-loss structures toward more tailored solutions that better address volatility and accumulation risk. At January 1, 2026, risk excess of loss coverage gained further momentum, with several new placements completed by Guy Carpenter’s Global Cyber practice. This reflects a more targeted approach to cyber risk transfer, aligning protection more closely with underlying exposure profiles.
Structural innovation remained a central theme of the renewal. Guy Carpenter placed the first GC Cyber XXL product for January 1, introducing a hard retrocession structure that provides excess of loss protection over a portfolio of underlying XoL treaties.
At the same time, retrocession industry loss warranty capacity expanded, supported by constructive conditions for buyers. Building on developments seen during 2025, the GC Step Up Aggregate cover also continued to attract interest, offering an efficient upfront premium with a stepped increase triggered once a defined loss ratio is reached.
Another notable development was the placement of the first combined property and cyber excess of loss treaty. Guy Carpenter notes that this structure is particularly effective in the extreme tail, where minimum rate-on-line requirements can limit the value of standalone cyber purchases. By combining exposures, cedents are able to secure more efficient tail protection, while reinsurers benefit from broader diversification and more flexible capital deployment.
According to Guy Carpenter, these advanced structures are delivering clear benefits on both sides of the market. Cedents gain greater flexibility in managing capital, volatility and accumulation risk, while reinsurers gain more refined tools to support line size growth and portfolio diversification.
The rising appetite for non-proportional and aggregate solutions reflects a market that is becoming more precise and responsive in its approach to risk transfer, supported by closer collaboration between intermediaries, cedents and reinsurers.
The report also places recent cyber events in a broader context. High-profile incidents, including the attack on Jaguar Land Rover, have exposed vulnerabilities and underinsurance across interconnected business ecosystems, with the scale of supplier disruption in some cases requiring government financial intervention.
Even incidents that resulted in limited insured losses, such as major cloud service outages and ransomware attacks on key suppliers, have demonstrated how cyber disruptions can cascade through supply chains, creating widespread operational and economic consequences.
Guy Carpenter concludes that these events continue to highlight a significant gap between economic cyber losses and insured recoveries. As cyber risk becomes more interconnected across industries and geographies, reinsurance, supported by innovative structures and disciplined design, has a critical role to play in narrowing this gap and strengthening resilience across the global economy.
The post Non-proportional cyber pricing falls up to 25% as XoL and hard retro gain ground at 1.1: Guy Carpenter appeared first on ReinsuranceNe.ws.
