Another quiet hurricane season, some near misses with catastrophes worldwide, and continued softening in pricing, terms and conditions have contributed to another good renewal season for reinsurance buyers--bringing prices down about 9 percent worldwide and even lower in the United States, industry observers report.

"In the U.S., national programs are down 10 percent, U.S. regional programs are down 12 percent, and that reflected the greater capacity available in the marketplace for smaller programs," said Chris Klein, managing director and global head of business intelligence with Guy Carpenter in London.

"The other thing we observed on U.S. renewals was that while rates were down across all layers on programs, the decreases were more pronounced on the lower layers, where premiums tend to be larger, and for which there was therefore more competition," he added.

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