As many of you will know, insurance solutions is one of our areas of deepest expertise at Laz Partners, as well as our fastest-growing practice area.
We speak with senior leaders across this market daily, and below are some of the key trends coming through most consistently in those conversations:
1. Hedge funds and credit houses are moving into the insurance solutions space, in two ways: Some (eg. Sona Asset Management) are building out rated note feeder offerings to allow insurers to more easily invest in their products without incurring significant capital charges. Others are still in the early days of working out how to do more with insurers across public & private credit, as well as reinsurance.
2. The sell-side is going principal: Banks have run reinsurance desks for years. The new bit is turning that into recurring-revenue franchises. Goldman Sachs is one of the furthest along with the $1bn West Grove Re sidecar and hires straight from reinsurers.
3. Multi-framework structurers are the scarcest profile in the market: With multiple key global insurance regulatory frameworks (eg. Solvency II MA, NAIC, Solvency II SF) undergoing reforms in the next 12 months, the people in highest demand will be those who can take an asset such as private credit and package it to ensure efficient capital treatment under multiple (constantly changing) frameworks.
4. Traditional asset managers will find it increasingly difficult to succeed in insurance solutions without an edge: Many are still launching or rebuilding insurance solutions teams. It is very competitive, and few will succeed. Real money shops almost certainly need strong alt credit capabilities or a clear edge to make an insurance solutions business viable and scalable. Managers tied to insurers at least have a captive book, although 3rd-party (and especially alt credit) assets are the true revenue-generators.
5. Sidecars, ILS and Cat Bonds are booming: Reinsurance capital is at record levels, third-party capital is near $130bn & life & annuity sidecars saw reserves ceded pass $90bn in 2025. Many of our buy-side clients tell us they want to allocate, and to do that they will first need specialist talent who can price the risk inside a sidecar or a cat bond across P&C, life and specialty.
6. Talent is moving fast: Specialist talent with the above backgrounds are in high demand and at record levels.
