Funded reinsurance is an increasingly prominent feature of global insurance markets and one of its leading providers is Resolution Life.

The company has been involved in reinsurance transactions around the world and last year strengthened its exposure to UK pension risk transfer (PRT) liabilities when it announced one of the biggest funded reinsurance deals in the market to date.

Resolution Re, the group's Bermudian reinsurance carrier, beat off some 23 reinsurers who were engaged in the first round, from which 10 indicative quotes were received, to win this mandate.

The transaction was motivated by the cedant's desire to diversify its reinsurance counterparty exposures and therefore recapture an existing reinsurance treaty to assign to a new counterparty, for effective risk and capital management.

Key to its success in the deal was Resolution's delivery of a binding price within three weeks of receiving the final asset and liability data. It also engaged in detailed longevity due diligence and structuring conversations with the cedant on topics, such as illiquid assets and overcollateralisation, eventually coming up with a deal which balanced the cedant's reinsurance needs with security and price.

Resolution was able to take on a premium portfolio that worked for both parties, based on the asset listing provided and assisted in the cedant's onboarding of a third-party asset management mandate for illiquid asset classes.

The fact the deal was constructed in a very challenging three-week timeline — due to the cedant's desire for recapture and the subsequent reinsurance to not overlap with year-end—only adds to its impressive nature.

On the other side, Resolution also executed its first longevity swap transaction to generate further value and effectively manage risk, a swap that was also executed quickly and efficiently.

And the company has continued to build on its success – Resolution Life closed another funded re deal in September, and as of the end of 2024, had completed three funded re deals with UK cedants, bringing its total liabilities in the UK market to over $3.5bn.

Resolution Life is undoubtedly cementing itself as one of the leading players in the field and rightly wins InsuranceERM's inaugural funded re award as a result of both this hard work and the impressive outcomes in the UK market.