Chairman, Gen Re / Chair of the Executive Board, General Reinsurance AG, General Reinsurance
Search every verified Charlie Shamieh interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2023 interview for Insurance Europe's Cover Note series, Charlie Shamieh, chairman of Gen Re and chair of the Reinsurance Advisory Board (RAB), discussed the role of reinsurers in managing global risk and supporting climate resilience. Shamieh described the reinsurance industry as sustainable, stating that "it has adapted to extreme events whether they come in the form of natural catastrophes, market risk events, credit events, illnesses, pandemics, etc." He emphasized the importance of investing in loss mitigation at the local level, such as building codes and materials, to prevent insurance from becoming uninsurable, and cited the Institute for Business and Home Safety as an example of industry-funded research. Shamieh also expressed concern about regulatory trends that concentrate capital in specific regions, arguing that this limits reinsurers' ability to deploy capital where it is needed and drives up costs for both reinsurance and insurance. He called for a more global dialogue among regulators to effectively manage aggregate risks, including cyber threats and data breaches, rather than a "myopic approach" to individual branches or subsidiaries.
“if you if you want to have an example of an industry that's sustainable you should look no further than the reinsurance industry because it has adapted to extreme events whether they come in the form of natural catastrophes uh Market risk events uh credit events um uh illnesses sicknesses pandemics Etc.”
“the more Regulators around the world um are Desiring of that Capital to be more concentrated in certain pockets of the world and to be honest that's a very um uh limiting uh trend for reinsurers because it means that the ability of reinsurers no matter how big they are uh to get the capital in time to where it's needed...”
As he takes the helm of Insurance Europe’s Reinsurance Advisory Board, Gen Re chairman Charlie Shamieh discussed global risk-sharing and reinsurers’ role in supporting climate resilience with Insurance Europe director general Michaela Koller as part of its Cover Note series.
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