Munich Re, one of Europe’s big four reinsurance companies, targeted portfolio optimisation and selective growth at the January 1st, 2026, renewals, shrinking its book by 7.8% year-on-year, but despite the softening environment, the reinsurer’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Christoph Jurecka, still sees ample opportunity for growth.
This morning, Munich Re posted a very strong set of results for the 2025 financial year, including a net result above target of more than €6.1 billion, a robust life and health reinsurance performance, and a property and casualty reinsurance combined ratio of 73.5%, or 80.1% on a normalised basis.
The reinsurer also provided some details of its experience at the key January renewals, where prices came down 2.5% overall as the volume of business written fell to €13.7 billion. At 1.1 2026, the carrier deliberately cut back in both casualty and property proportional business, opting to grow selectively in areas which met its requirements.
Munich Re said this morning that despite the current landscape, the price level of its portfolio remained good, and that looking ahead to April, it expects a market environment in which attractive price levels and improved terms and conditions can be largely upheld.
Recently, executives at the firm discussed the 2025 results and other market trends on a call with analysts, and the outlook for subsequent 2026 reinsurance renewal periods was raised, and specifically whether Munich Re expects to be able to grow volumes in various business lines throughout the remainder of the year.
“There’s plenty of opportunities, obviously,” said Jurecka. “We were able to renew a lot of our business at attractive prices, and the market generally is in a good place still. So, therefore, if you look at these reductions, which are indeed true, in basically all lines of business we were able to place business in attractive price and also attractive T&Cs still.”
He went on to say that even in the proportional space, where Munich Re reduced significantly, there were still opportunities for growth, and the firm took advantage of this in some casualty business in Europe and Latin America.
“But, what I would still like to underline, again, is that the market generally is still in an attractive territory, so there are plenty of opportunities out there.”
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