eReinsure the Company

3.4.01

DOUGLAS SHILLITO INTERVIEWS eREINSURE.COM

Following up the launch of the new internet trading site e-REINSURE.COM last month, I spoke with chief executive officer, Igor Best-Devereux about the background to the venture.

Best-Devereux started off his career with Royal Insurance in London and worked for several brokers until moving to the United States nine years ago, switching to data communications and early internet applications. The challenge was to think out of the box to try and streamline reinsurance placing in a way that would be acceptable to all partners but using the latest internet technology. He said that the start-off model had been refined over a period of time as early exchanges emerged concentrating on business-to-business followed by auction sites that he felt would probably not work because disintermediation was not desirable in the market. In effect, eREINSURE.COM is a private exchange covering the non-standardised market where various iterations will be required to complete the deal, whether treaty or facultative. After talking to players in the market about what they would like in the way of business process, Chubb, the Inter-Pacific Capital Corp. and other private investors backed the venture. e-REINSURE.COM have developed and control the technology deployed which is not generic. Best-Devereux wanted to introduce a placing system where price was not the only criteria but had to be traded off against terms and conditions. The system is a centralised ASP service and is more an office application than a portal. It includes workflow and placement procedures through a shared file, a collaborative environment, protocols, templates and audit trails along with unstructured attachments such as e-mails and reports. He feels that cedents will get reinsurers to sign up, but it is a neutral platform with brokers and other parties very much involved. A standard licence fee will be charged per completed transaction and reinsurers will pay a membership fee depending on their level of involvement.

The development and hosting is based in Salt Lake City but the company have already set up offices in New York, and London in the Lloyd's building. Best-Devereux sees WISe, ACORD and IVANS as facilitating the flow of the system. The mixture of structured and unstructured communications provides flexibility, and in many ways is similar to the approach taken by Claims Online (see my interview 25/02/01). With Best-Devereux's in-depth London Market experience in both underwriting and broking, and with the company's practical approach, leaving members to decide how and with whom to do business with, the initiative is one to watch.

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