The head of a reinsurance firm has clashed with an insurance broker and other executives over the issue of whether broker investments in insurance carriers and carrier stakes in brokers are proper.

Dr. Nikolaus von Bomhard, chief executive officer of Munich Re, kicked off the controversy when he counseled against such investments at a CEO Leadership Panel at the World Insurance Forum in Southhampton, Bermuda, drawing dissenting views from other executives.

Dr. von Bomhard raised the issue during a discussion of the role that intermediaries have in the world since New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's revelations of bid-rigging practices involving brokers and insurers.

Michael Butt, chairman of Axis Capital Holdings Limited, moderated the panel, asking industry leaders whether relationships between brokers and carriers had changed, post-Spitzer, with brokers now more clearly focused on client responsibilities and professional advisory services to clients.

Several panelists, including Brian Storms, chairman and CEO of Marsh, weighed in on the question, reporting that there has been an "evolution" of brokers providing risk management advisory services, and that carrier and broker relationships were strong, allowing the two parties to meet with customers together.

After those responses, Dr. von Bomhard noted that reinsurers like Munich Re have a complex relationship with intermediaries, because they are at once markets, clients and competitors with the intermediaries for providing professional services to clients.

"The other point I want to make is much more controversial," he said, noting that he has never understood the thinking behind allowing brokers to set up carriers.

"That I think is a breach of a line that should not be breached," he said, adding that reinsurers should also not buy brokers.

"We were asked several times when brokerages were taken off the stock exchange--taken private--[if we would] take a share, and the answer was pretty straightforward: No. We cannot cross that line," he said.

"I think it's a reputational problem much more for the broker" relative to the client than it is for the reinsurance company. "How can you play the objective card if you have a 20 percent share in the carrier?"

Mr. Butt was quick to respond, seemingly taking personal offense since Axis was started up in Bermuda in 2001 with investments from Trident, a private equity fund managed by MMC Capital.

"There is a difference between being a sponsor and promoter, and being a long-term holder. I'm the result of two of them--XL and Axis, he said, referring to a prior role as a director for XL Capital.

"If you view the broker's role as helping to create a market [when] there is a total vacuum, then it's helpful for them" to step in to provide capacity initially, "but then step back."

"That's exactly what the companies I have been involved with have done. They've been creators, and then stepped back."

Mr. Storms said the ownership of underwriting units by brokers is acceptable even in certain situations where capacity is not an issue.

"We have a small managing general agency that serves a very defined niche," he said, noting that highly segmented business, which he did not identify, operates in an area that "is not efficiently served by any of the major markets."

"It doesn't in any way conflict with the large mass of clients we have around the world," Mr. Storms said.

Prior to the panel discussion, Bermuda Gov. John Vereker delivered remarks opening the conference that called on Bermuda market participants to "set and aggressively police" ethical standards and work to preserve sterling reputations.

"There is absolutely no sign that the international scrutiny...of offshore financial centers is going to abate," he said.

"Everyone who conducts business on this island has or should have a personal stake in the maintenance of its reputation," he said. "All the regulation in the world will not create a perfectly clean environment. But individual businesses can," he added.

Special Reports /

Broker Investments In Carriers Challenged By Munich Re CEO

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