PwC’s research, Reinsurance 2035: Rethinking the Risk Business, sets out a vision of reinsurers playing a central role in the financial system over the next decade.
The firm points to the Fund and Insure domain as the big opportunity—potentially generating $17 tn in gross value by 2035, depending on how climate disruption and technological shifts play out.
That framing goes beyond capital supply. PwC sees reinsurers orchestrating resilience, enabling long-term investment, and anchoring systemic stability. But the report also makes clear: the industry is under its heaviest pressure to adapt in a generation.
PwC’s BMR Pressure Index shows 17 of 22 global sectors facing the most intense reinvention demands in 25 years, with insurance ranked second.
Climate volatility, cyber threats, and geopolitical tension all push the urgency higher. The firm estimates this churn could drive a $604bn redistribution of financial services market share in 2025 alone.
The financial backdrop looks solid. Global premiums rose 8.6% in 2024 to €7tn, the fastest growth since before the financial crisis.
Reinsurers’ combined ratios hit their best level in a decade, and returns on equity reached 17%, well above the cost of capital. Yet PwC warns that these numbers disguise structural cracks.
The pandemic exposed fragility in health and liability coverage. Tight monetary policy reshaped solvency assumptions. Climate-linked catastrophes—from Canadian wildfires to Brazilian floods—kept underlining where traditional models fail.
The firm identifies four widening gaps: protection, resilience, talent, and funding. The global protection shortfall stood at $1.83tn in 2023.
Cyber and climate risks are outpacing infrastructure and regulatory capacity. Shortages in talent are biting as insurers need AI, data science, and cyber expertise. And the cost of climate transition could easily outstrip balance sheet capacity, demanding new capital structures to connect investors to risk.
PwC positions Fund and Insure as the financial spine for other domains—transport and energy under Move ($5.86tn by 2035), healthcare under Care ($9.31tn), and electrification under Fuel and Power ($6.19tn). In its view, reinsurers enable the investment flows, risk tools, and continuity that let those sectors scale.
The next decade will redefine how we fund and insure the world’s most critical industries. The future of re/insurance lies in orchestrating resilience, not just underwriting it.
Arthur Wightman, PwC Bermuda’s insurance leader
The report calls this a fundamental rethink of risk. The coming decade is not only a financial growth window but also a test of whether reinsurance can address systemic risk while steering economic transformation.
PwC argues the business will no longer be about acting purely as a loss backstop. Instead reinsurers will shift toward resilience, prediction, and prevention.
That means heavier investment in data and analytics, embedding insurance inside wider ecosystems like mobility, healthcare, and energy. To succeed, they’ll need domain strategies, cross-sector workforces, and tight partnerships with tech players.
