Nicolai Tangen: Hi everybody and welcome to in good company. I'm Nicolola Tangan the CEO of the Norwegian so wealth fund and today we are in really good company. We are here with Andreas Burgerer who is the CEO of Swiss Re. Now Swiss Re is a very interesting company. They basically insure insurance companies. We own 1.6% of the company or $800 million US. Warm welcome Andas.

Andreas Berger: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So let's start uh with the simplest thing here. What does a reinsurance company do?

Andreas Berger: Well, you already said it. We are the insurers of the insurance companies. Some refer to it as the central bank of the insurance industry. Technically not 100% correct. So we are giving financial protection to insurance companies.

Nicolai Tangen: Why do insurance companies need to insure themselves?

Andreas Berger: Insurance companies sit in a national or maybe also international context but they need to protect their balance sheet and they benefit from our diversification that happens at global level. So we've got global diversification because risks are not correlated but if you look at a standalone basis then obviously uh the insurance companies need more capital for this you know so diversification helps.

Nicolai Tangen: Do you have to have a special kind of psyche to work with uh only uh risks and negative potential negative outcomes?

Andreas Berger: No. But I think the purpose in particular also reinsurance in our um our purpose is we make the world more resilient. M

Nicolai Tangen: that resonates for people in particular for me who grew up in so many parts of the world and I saw risks firsthand um ketars revolutions uh other kinds of risks and I started to think what does that do what does that do to people what impact does it have when you switch on the TV everything that happens how do societies deal with this so I developed an interest in in all of this Um Andreas, can we talk about the different types of risks that you insure? How do you split it?

Andreas Berger: Yeah, we focused on three business units. One is life and health reinsurance. So our insurance companies, life and health insurance companies are clients, property and casualty reinsurance company. That's where the insurance companies sell property casualty, homeowners insurance, motor insurance, etc. Then we have a third unit that's called corporate solutions. There we are insure corporates large corporates who also have their own insurance companies captives. So this is these are the three units and they have a very nice diversification benefit for the group. Life insurance is not correlated to PNC reinsurance and within PNC reinsurance the two units are not directly correlated because corporate solutions reinsures externally.

Andreas Berger: I give give you an example natural catastrophes the capital return on a standalone basis for natural catast catastrophes is 8%. If you look at it at group level it increases to 40%. So that's the divers benefit diversification benefit that I'm talking about.

Nicolai Tangen: Let's start with uh natural catastrophes because we read about them in the paper every day. So uh what are the main catastrophes that you injure against?

Andreas Berger: uh we call it primary and secondary perils. Primary perils are earthquakes for instance, hurricans. Secondary perils are more the frequency um perils, floods, um wildfires, you know, the likes. Those are secondary perils. In the last um six years, consecutive years, the losses, the insured losses exceeded 100 billion. So that's about an increase of 5 to 7% per year. So we see really that the frequency increases but also the severity.

Andreas Berger: I think that's something to address. In uh 2024 for instance we had economic losses. Those are all losses not only the insured economic losses of 318 billion and 137 billion were insured.

Nicolai Tangen: Why do we have more and more natural catastrophes?

Andreas Berger: People refer always to climate. That's one aspect that complicates things. But the main aspect is population growth. Mhm. population growth and with the population growth comes increased assets, cars, houses etc. And unfortunately always in the nicest areas and some of the nicest areas are very very much natural catastrophe areas. So uh that is the main reason

Nicolai Tangen: if you split the two and we do climate first and then we do what uh the population growth. So uh what is the climate impact you think on catastrophes?

Andreas Berger: So the primary reason is really population growth. I must say that because climate uh impact we always had that. So that's one thing to think about but the climate aspect is actually adding to it and you can see it in water sea level rising or temperature rising.

Andreas Berger: So what we do is we project into the future. We've got a data platform where you can create basically your digital twin of for instance a corporate company and their assets. We stress test them with all the events, hurricanes etc. And then we also do projections according to temperature rises. We use scientific um models and that informs basically gives you insight informs the severity or the uh resilience management you know in uh corporates but insurance companies but also in public entities. Those are the three customer groups that we service.

Nicolai Tangen: I listened to some of your podcast and you know in your firm you talk about severe convection storms the way I understand it and these con these these convection storms are difficult to predict because they are very fast right and localized.

Andreas Berger: Yes they're difficult to predict but with our data platform and with the models that we then use with the projections we can anticipate some of it. Yes. But if not, there's always a way to mitigate and to prevent actions to mitigate. For instance, for floods, to build dikes, etc. You can see that, you know, $1 you spend on the mitigation saves you $10 for rebuilding after the event. So, that's a that's a critical aspect in uh in our business as well, not just to risk transfer to insure and reinsure, but also to help people prevent and mitigate.

Nicolai Tangen: What about things like wildfires?

Andreas Berger: Same story. Wildfires in particular in California, it's a known fact. It's a known fact.

Andreas Berger: So again, here you saw population growth in exactly those exposed areas. And there's a lot that can be done to mitigate maybe even prevent land use, building codes, right use of building materials. And you could see in the pictures also for um the wildfires that happened in uh California in in 2025 in January. You could see literally everything that burned down and then there were some houses that were not really impacted. So that is down to thinking about how do I build in order to mitigate something that I already know can happen. So it's not an unforeseen event.

Nicolai Tangen: um when we look at the data and we look at the global warming and uh and so on, I'm a bit surprised you are not uh emphasizing more uh deterioration in in the climate situation.

Andreas Berger: No, I think Swiss was very vocal about this. But what I thought would be best to do now is to get from this meta level, the macro level, I would call always call it from morality to materiality. Yeah. To translate what we know from science into real life. That's why we need data. We need to connect basically the scientific findings with real life datas from private households, public entities like municipalities but also for corporates and combine both.

Nicolai Tangen: Okay. So we have uh floods, we got fires, we got storms. So that's kind of the the events. But then also more people want to live where these kind of things are happening. So what are the and so more people in Texas, we got more solar panels on our roofs. all these kind of things happening, right? So, how big is that effect?

Andreas Berger: No, I think um the debate is now going really into concrete levels in particular at state level because it is a state uh uh problem and not really a federal problem. Uh the federal um level can help but what we do also with state levels, Texas is a very good example. We create exactly this data transparency. We ask them give us your data, your assets. We do this also in Australia for instance um in New Zealand concrete levels where uh levels of municipalities where we say let's gather the assets data put them really as a digital twin on their platform

Andreas Berger: and then let's see what happens in Texas heat uh waves drought um floods heavy precipitation etc. You could really nail it down to a very singular level because it is the that lat long that we address. You know, we just need the address, add a bit of information and then the digital twin is complete. That's not a complicated thing and the data is very often not really readily available. So we try to help people to organize data also in a more effective way.

Nicolai Tangen: What are the kind of things that you cannot ensure anymore because of weather related risks? I'm thinking about, you know, housing in California, uh, and other places because of flood and so on. Just what how does this work?

Andreas Berger: It's not an insurability problem. It's actually more than an affordability problem. If we don't take care of loss prevention, I think that's the important thing. We need to not only provide a balance sheet for risk transfer where people benefit from our diversification, but also we need to help people make use of our data, data analytics. We collected data for now 162 years. We're a data company and now with modern technology where we build data models etc. We can make our models natural catastrophe models readily available and then give insights how to prevent how to reduce actually the levels of threat

Andreas Berger: that increases resilience. It's before you even think about insurance. So we need to refocus on the concept of ownership of risk. You cannot shift the burden when you build a house somewhere. That's your house. So you need to be informed about the geog geological situation what can happen in this area and this information is available. So that is our um approach to say understanding awareness creation plus quantification step one. Step two is actually mitigation prevention and step three is then risk financing. One way is actually risk transfer insurance or reinsurance. Then

Nicolai Tangen: do you think we'll see more cases where the government actually needs to own the risk?

Andreas Berger: Yeah. In some areas the problem is too big to be solved by one party. That's why we promote these public private partnership models.

Nicolai Tangen: And what what what are examples of these?

Andreas Berger: Examples are actually in areas where we say land use needs to be reassessed. M should people move into certain areas where it's almost predictable that catastrophes will happen.

Andreas Berger: M and there are good examples where New Zealand for instance has decided to relocate people communities. It's a tough decision but if you have the data and a common understanding that's a good way to address it. we have um um uh uh in in the UK public private partnerships to address basically the flat problem. So the communities come together, the public entities come together and the insurance sector come together. Um there are investments into dikes etc. Um and then we can provide you know capacity otherwise insurance would be not affordable anymore.

Nicolai Tangen: M are there many places where you think well you know what we got enough risk here we don't want to take on more risk like New York how much risk would a company like yours have in New York if you add up all the real estate all the kind of things you have there

Andreas Berger: no I think we have a capacity allocation model first of all we allocate capital and then the next level is obviously in our chief underwriting committee we allocate the capacity to the different types of products or risks lines of business as we call them. Yeah. And obviously we need to see you know that we're not overexposed. We do accumulation controls and obviously that informs the level of capacity that we deploy to individual risks and then we deploy actually uh budgets to certain uh territories uh but also to certain lines of businesses then.

Nicolai Tangen: So that was the PNC but you also have other parts of the business.

Andreas Berger: Yes, we've got the PNC reinsurance business then obviously the corporate business. That's the second part. And then the third part is the life and health reinsurance business. Um I think maybe let's talk about the corporate business first and then

Nicolai Tangen: because you were running that before.

Andreas Berger: I was running that before that is basically

Nicolai Tangen: and and that had some problems in the past which you came in and faced.

Andreas Berger: Yes. Because equally like the PNC reinsurance business, it's also a volatile business.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah.

Andreas Berger: And again you need to see what diversification do you have in your portfolio? which risks do you onboard, take on your balance sheet and how do you want to grow in this in this type of business. So we

Nicolai Tangen: so so what what kind of risks do you have in that part of the business?

Andreas Berger: Uh we ensure basically the full range. We ensure in corporates for their assets for their liabilities for uh transportation uh also the aviation risks and sometimes we share it also with the reinsurance unit. So corporates, large corporates and upper middle market corporates are our customer base. We're not in the retail business. So we are typically a B2B businessto business business

Andreas Berger: where you have professional buying centers uh working together. So we provide also structured solutions, risk financing solutions for captive insurance companies that are owned by corporates. And here again our data models are being used and our capacity are being used and we provide worldwide cover for international insurance programs we call them you know where corporates steer their risk globally for all assets in the world centrally and they need a partner who can actually respond to the needs on the service side but also help to structure it. It's a complex business

Nicolai Tangen: and what was the problem here in the past?

Andreas Berger: The problem was that we were um had outsized positions in certain type of areas. For instance, in US uh liability and um the large corporate risk uh space in the US liability was very exposed to a lot of losses and uh that is something where we were overexposed more than 50% of our business was in the US and 90% of all liability business was also in the US. So we had a concentration there and that was hurting us.

Nicolai Tangen: And what so then they brought you into fix it and what did you do?

Andreas Berger: We basically reset this business unit. We said what are we talking about? Who is actually the customer and what do they actually need from us? Where do we have differentiating assets that we can deploy to the customer where the customer also values Swiss assets.

Andreas Berger: So risk insights leading programs lead capabilities. You need to have the right risk engineers, the right underwriters who can do that and also the the right claims handlers who can do that. And today we have a very clear proposition. We're not everything to everyone. We focus on a specific customer segment. We have reduced the longtail business and have now a very healthy um book of cor non-correlated lines of businesses. When the property cycles go down, we definitely have credit insurance. that was counter cyclical that helped us actually uh produce our results but also if you look at the customer feedback they value what Swiss3 stands for on the reinsurance side equally also on the corporate side

Andreas Berger: we're one of the few late entrances in a small group of insurance companies it's the international insurance program space but it's also alternative risk transfer where you look at uh finding alternative risk financing uh structures for corporates, complex structures. Not everybody can do that. So if you look at numbers in this space, you probably deal with eight to 10 competitors in the international program space and then if you go into normal placement there, you deal with hundreds uh or more uh competitors. So that differentiation helped us to manage basically um also the outcome.

Nicolai Tangen: Your last uh part is the the life side. How does uh the new types of obesity uh anti-obesity drugs impact this division?

Andreas Berger: Yeah. So we have um um some we the leading life and health reinsurance company in the world and we have something that's called life guide. There we collect all the information that we make available to underwriters for primary insurance companies about certain type of diseases. It's almost like a medical handbook.

Nicolai Tangen: Mhm.

Andreas Berger: With AI, we add AI basically and we augment the offering on this lifeguard side. So obesity and all the uh specific aspects of it obviously are entered into our model and into our assumptions obviously and um we had this this debate around co you know what was the reason the causality for these spikes spikes that we could see after the core event of co yeah so the late reporting of claims and we had in I I think it was in 2023 in Q3 if I remember correctly we had a spike coming spike coming through from the US and we were scratching our heads and we say why is this happening in the US in particular in the age group um of middle-aged people because in all OECD countries you didn't see that spike and that causality needed to be understood people asked is this obesity Is this use of drugs? Is this cancer? Because interestingly it went through all social groups.

Andreas Berger: So there's a lot of research that's happening there. Not all answers are have been found. But I think that's something really when we need to dig very deep because we exposing our balance sheet and we need to put you know the expectations into our costing into our pricing ultimately also and if you don't get it right you expose yourself for a time period of 30 40 sometimes 50 years. Yeah. That's the duration of those contracts. That's why that granularity of understanding is very important.

Nicolai Tangen: What are some of the new issues that you need to think about in terms of whether you can insure them or not?

Andreas Berger: How does insurance work? You need data. You need data and you need to start to model. You need to understand the data. Let's take one risk where cyber as an example. It is a common event. But if you go out and ask people tell me what your worst case scenario is then you get a lot of answers also the deep understanding of the cyber exposures is not good enough yet.

Nicolai Tangen: Can we fully insure against cyber I mean could we with our wealth fund come to an insurance company and totally insure against cyber so that if somebody stole our money we would get it back from you.

Andreas Berger: Yeah, it's really it starts with the understanding of the exposure. Yeah. And that is something that where we have to work together and that's the most critical piece. Um why don't you get so many so high limits? Because insurance companies are reducing their exposure by offering smaller limits because we don't know actually what the worst case scenario actually could look like.

Nicolai Tangen: Mhm. So

Nicolai Tangen: So you you cap your exposures for each case.

Andreas Berger: Absolutely. Yeah. And uh we have capacity limits and we have risk limits in our company also and that's very important to to to measure these.

Nicolai Tangen: What about AI? So we make some AI models in you make some AI models in a firm. It goes totally ballistically wrong big losses. How can you ensure that?

Andreas Berger: Yeah. So that's a new area and uh I've been um talking about this for quite some time uh even before the big hype of AI because what's happening people work with data and data has biases too and then the algorithms come in and by the way software programs have the same you know so the malfunction of algorithms or software programs is a topic that we need to really get a better understanding for

Andreas Berger: um in our company the AI governance and the framework for the digital use of data in uh business is strongly regulated. So we always have the human in the loop. We don't allow AI to take decisions for the humans and we have this dilemma and managers have this dilemma. There's this excitement but then there's also the risk.

Nicolai Tangen: My uh my understanding is that you have uh two levers uh to move when it comes to pricing. You got you got the pricing right. So prices up by 3%, 5%, 7%. But you also have the exclusion element, right? So you can you can cap your exposures and you can just exclude things from what you cover. How uh tell us about this ex exclusion thing and how that works.

Andreas Berger: Well, usually um when you have a exposure in II for instance or algorithm malfunction etc. It can span across various type of covers that are existing today. And cyber happened started that way because you had a typical property insurance cover or something that we call non-damage business interruption because property covers usually were triggered when there was a fire. Yeah. Or explosion. But the non-damage exposure and physical damage exposure I think that was new. M and through this the cyber exposures were creeping into traditional covers and that's something that was not intended when the cover or the contract was established

Andreas Berger: and that's why as it grew as an exposure the industry more and more came to the conclusion we need to actually exclude it understand it and then as we understand it and if have a a grip around it then we need to have a separate cover for this so you can buy now separate uh cyber cover m instead of integrating it into a property or non-damage business interruption cover

Nicolai Tangen: but but these things are become it's becoming more and more complicated right uh and so what we see I read in the paper recently is that more and more of these settlements are ending up in court how do you see that development

Andreas Berger: um I I I can't confirm that we have many many more verdicts but there are disputes yes because there's a dispute around what was the intent when the contract was created and then what's the exposure you know the new exposure the emerging exposures are they included are they not included that I think that's the the typical debate that you have but that's normal in particular in the B2B world it's normal

Andreas Berger: when it comes to households to private um private um customers personal airlines alliance or businesses their clarity of cover is very important because it's a consumer protection aspect with companies that negotiate with reinsurance companies or insurance companies. There you have two professional buying centers. Both are pretty sophisticated and there it comes down to also contract certainty is very important and that's why not only the price is important but actually as you said the terms and conditions.

Nicolai Tangen: So we we talked now about your three areas and how they and they kind of cancel out each other to a certain extent. So not you know some pretty kind of potentially stable results from you. Now the way I the way I understand uh this business uh and the cyclicality of the business is that you have some years with big losses.

Andreas Berger: Yes.

Nicolai Tangen: Afterwards prices go up and when prices go up it's really profitable. So then you get more capital coming in competing prices down back again.

Andreas Berger: Mhm.

Nicolai Tangen: How do these cycles work?

Andreas Berger: First of all there's not only one cycle.

Andreas Berger: Yeah. It's very important to note each product each line of business as we call it has a different cycle. So when a cycle a rate environment is de declining in property or natural catastrophe insurance there are other lines of businesses that are not correlated to that and I think that's what we observe. We look at our total portfolio and we call it the target liability portfolio. We have a fiveyear forward-looking view and we assume develop developments, rate developments, but also inflation et that all comes in and then we see how does my portfolio behave and if there's one cycle that goes down I probably will not grow in that area so much anymore. So I limit capacity deployment to that area.

Andreas Berger: Mhm. And then I have focused growth ambitions in other areas that are not correlated with that are not going down. And that's the cycle management. And it's important to understand the behaviors of players in each part of the cycle that a line of business is in.

Nicolai Tangen: Who are the big players in reinsurance?

Andreas Berger: Um we have um the top three lead reinsurers we always call them. Um you could say the top five. The top five have something around 46% of the market share. The top three have some

Nicolai Tangen: So it's Munichree, it's you,

Andreas Berger: Munichree, Hanover, and US. Then their score as a next one. And then you have also the the second tier ones as we call them. So 40 31% roughly the top three, 46% top five and the top 10 have roughly 70% of the market share. So the top tier one are the lead reinsurers.

Andreas Berger: Prime insurance companies need lead reinsurers for long-term stability, strong balance sheet, highly rated balance sheets and long-term commitment and also those are able to offer whole account views. Then you go into the next second level ones, you find a lot of Bermudans in there. And then you have the third tier um

Nicolai Tangen: a companies which are situated in Bermuda.

Andreas Berger: They are situated in Bermuda. And um it was a growing segment, the sec tier 2 segment. And then you've got smaller companies, reinsurance companies, very often um departments of primary insurance companies who opened up a reinsurance company. Those are sometimes the tier three ones.

Nicolai Tangen: Yes. So let's say now after this meeting uh I come out and feel really inspired and uh wow reinsurance company reinsurance business that's just the greatest thing we should start to do that with uh part of the fund that we have what do we need to do I mean what what are the skill sets that you need to have to start every insurance company

Andreas Berger: so first of all you need to focus on what do you want to be and who who do you want to be uh to to service what's your customer base if you say

Nicolai Tangen: well we want to a big we want to be a big player and make a lot of money.

Andreas Berger: Okay. So I would say let's talk about the capabilities first. Yeah. So you need the diverse spectrum of all capabilities that you can have. It's a multid-disciplinary approach. We have scientists, physicians, um we have engineers, we've got mathematicians, acturies, we've got lawyers, business administration. So

Nicolai Tangen: yeah, weather forecast the full spectrum.

Andreas Berger: Yes. Exactly. The full spectrum. Yeah. Chem chemist chemists and the full spectrum we have. Why? Because the exposure and the risk pool is so diverse. And to get a good understanding of all the aspects of risk, we need this diversity. And if people are very curious, this is an industry to be in. So risks are diverse. When you switch on the TV, Nikolai for instance, and you see the watch the news, every aspect of the news has to do with reinsurance.

Andreas Berger: So for me, it's super fulfilling. Yeah. So we are operating.

Nicolai Tangen: So when you read the news, do you sleep afterwards or do you have nightmares or

Andreas Berger: No, because we make the world more resilient. So you need to find answers for this and I think that's exciting and you bring in your knowledge. But then also in working in global teams we have,75 teams at Swissry who operate at a global level who are not sitting in one office like we do sit at one table.

Nicolai Tangen: So let's talk through these capabilities that you have then so you know who are you know how many are uh actuaries you just what do people do

Andreas Berger: for instance we have 50 researchers who think about natural catastrophes day in day out. M we have around 200 models. So each event outside in the world is one new data point that will be integrated and keep our models updated. So we probably have the one of the most complete models worldwide. So that's one discipline. But if you go out and have to assess a data center, so you obviously have a lot of information through your desk research and risk engineering work and desk exercise, but you also go out for that you need to have people who have a deep understanding of what they're actually assessing. Yeah. So that's why these various disciplines are being you know brought to the party. Yeah.

Andreas Berger: Just to give you those examples, uh we also have uh people who are pure underwriters. That's what we do. We're an underwriting company and underwriting also includes for me claims and we train people who come from various different disciplines to actually do underwriting. Yeah, there's a clear curriculum. We've got um uh a new leadership architecture and training architecture where where we also include AI elements

Nicolai Tangen: and underwriting is basically to decide how you price risk.

Andreas Berger: Yes.

Nicolai Tangen: Because you can uh you can make the biggest reinsurance company in 10 minutes by just taking on all risks at the wrong price.

Andreas Berger: Yes. The wrong price.

Nicolai Tangen: I hope you don't do this.

Andreas Berger: No. No. Of course not. And then you blow up.

Nicolai Tangen: Yes. Yes. When the losses start to happen, how do you train people to walk away from the wrong risks?

Andreas Berger: Yeah. So, we have a clear understanding of our risk appetite.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah. Because you can't because you can't remunerate people on the amount of business they write because they can write the wrong one, right?

Andreas Berger: No, you're absolutely right. It comes down to the incentives. I mean, we have a clear view on what our risk appetite is. Where we deploy our capital, we need a return on this and then obviously this is translated in capacity deployment. And then we tell people you're not forced to grow. You're forced to grow the bottom line we always call it.

Andreas Berger: So the incentivization is really to understand the risk properly and make sure that it's not growth for just for the sake of growth. And I think that's a that's the this dilemma that an underwriter always is in. And that's why an underwriter is an underwriter. And a good underwriter can balance it, can understand where can I grow, where can I deploy my capacity, where I get the return. So you better understand the risk. And we have tools that give you an indication also of pricing and the terms and conditions. And then the negotiations out there in the market in a very competitive market environment might actually push you into a decision that you normally wouldn't take. And that's something that we watch very carefully.

Nicolai Tangen: So the people who work here are on average extremely risk averse.

Andreas Berger: No, you I know this this is a discussion we have internally all the time because when we say the market is not in a situation where you should grow now because the terms and conditions or the rates are not uh risk adequate. So then as the moment comes where the markers are turning, you need to switch your mindset then because then suddenly you can write more and that moment is very decisive because once you are in this defense mode to switch then again into a more offense mode. So that's the when soft markets you know pivot into hard markets that's a very interesting psychological thing also.

Nicolai Tangen: just thinking a firm full of very risk conscious people. I'm just wondering what the Christmas parties uh look like.

Andreas Berger: Oh, we had recently a Christmas party in Zurich. We had I think almost 2,000 people.

Nicolai Tangen: You still know how to party.

Nicolai Tangen: So, how is AI changing the way you work?

Andreas Berger: I think AI is changing our work dramatically. We have been dealing with AI for quite some time. So we were at an early stage already working with machine learning advanced analytics etc. We are a data company and people company. We think in data models. So we have established a clean data strategy with a front-end ontology and then based on a clean globally integrated data platform. Now we're AI ready I always call it because every AI use case we have will instantly be integrated into our data and technology infrastructure. Mhm.

Andreas Berger: So that's where where you can then detract the benefits because the problem very often is that data and technology is outdated. It's fragmented. Huge IT legacy and IT debt. So that the individual AI use cases are still standalone use cases and cannot be integrated into your data and uh technology infrastructure. So the benefits are not visible. I think that's the biggest problem we have in the industry. Now what we do with um AI, we use AI also to augment to improve our decision- making but we also use it to improve our processes.

Nicolai Tangen: What do you think um quantum computing will do?

Andreas Berger: Well, this is the next um development. Now quite frankly I am happy if we manage phase one and implement um in particular gentic AI because the change we go through is massive because it changes the way people work today. We have to re-imagine our processes. Now quantum computer computing comes obviously because we deal with such an amount of data but I'm happy if I do step one and actually implement it properly and generate the benefits. The rest it's very far away and will come as a next step then for me.

Nicolai Tangen: Now you got a lot of money uh because people pay you premiums and so on and you put them into capital markets. So it's an important part of what you do, right? Absolutely. How you invest your capital base. Um how what is your view on markets now?

Andreas Berger: So I always call it the ying and yang in our insurance industry. We were talking about the liability side.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah.

Andreas Berger: Now there's the asset side of the balance sheet and they all belong together. They're so important for delivery of our net income for instance. Yeah. So the ying and yang means also

Nicolai Tangen: so liability the kind of things you potentially have to pay out and the asset side is the capital you have which you put in financial markets.

Andreas Berger: Yeah we assume risk on the liability side that's the underwriting that we were talking about and now there's the ALM the asset liability management piece that translates into the SAA strategic asset allocation then we give it it um to a partner an asset manager or sometimes we also do it ourselves.

Nicolai Tangen: give us a feel how much money do you have in have you how much money have you got invested

Andreas Berger: so we have assets under management north of 100 billion um obviously as we grow the business this will also grow so that's the magnitude that we have and then we have a strategic ass allocation that is obviously dependent on the liabilities and the payout patterns so the claims paying a ability we have to show and and capability which have to show all the time so we have a pretty conservative asset allocation But we work with all partners. But then also it's not just the the asset management side to protect uh sort of to to the ying and yang side. As I said, we also are bridging from the insurance the liability side towards capital markets, the insurance link securities markets. We're one of the the first ones the founders of the insurance link security markets.

Andreas Berger: We've got some notional 5 billion 50 billion in the market out there. So I think that's a significant market and uh we have cat bonds that we issue

Nicolai Tangen: catastrophe bonds. Yeah.

Andreas Berger: Catastrophe bonds that we issue

Nicolai Tangen: where you get money and then if there is a catastrophe you basically don't get so much money.

Andreas Berger: Well this is the cat bonds catastrophe bonds are a nice instrument in particular for institutional investors. So it diversifies quite nicely with your with your assets that you that you have and the returns are quite attractive. So we have seen between 11 14% return. So I think that's very attractive but I I think it's it's more for professionals for institutional investors there trends now to bring it more to private uh individuals. Um I would say this is an instrument for professionals. So I think um because there's also risk attached to it. Yeah

Nicolai Tangen: totally. And what how would you characterize the corporate culture in Swiss?

Andreas Berger: Swiss re has more than 120 nationalities. We operate in around 70 countries. Um offices, we've got 70 offices in countries. Um we are global by in nature. We are uh diverse in nature and we've discussed about the disciplines, the capabilities that we bring together here. So that's the nature that's the company who we are. We have a very collaborative um culture. Um we have a big big tradition. It's 160 years old company and um people see that there's a lot of risk inside risk knowledge and that's what people are proud about and if you combine this risk knowledge risk insight with a highly collaborative spirit and add now the performance aspect to bring solutions to the customers I think that is a nice um dynamic um and energetic environment

Nicolai Tangen: very highly educated

Andreas Berger: in on average yes so uh We have graduate programs. We have partnerships with universities um that we're very proud of. Uh but we uh are looking for experts. Yes. But also uh in particular experienced people. Yeah. So uh when you look at the recruitments that we have, a lot happens with experienced people, but we still have also graduate programs.

Nicolai Tangen: You are relatively new as a CEO. What part of the corporate culture are you trying to change?

Andreas Berger: I tried to maintain what Swiss stands for and the customer's value, but I'd like to emphasize a few points. The core business, we are an underwriting company. So, we should be proud to be an underwriting company because that's why customers come to us. They like our expertise, our creativity to find solutions. But I also like to have the performance, the performance view. Um, we always call it close the gap to number one because that's the mindset.

Andreas Berger: People always ask me what does one number one mean? No, I said that's the mindset in your activity. Who's number one? And what's the gap to number one? Can you close that gap? It's not about being the biggest all the time, but to have that will to win that that edge to find the best solution for the customers, but that also bring a financial outcome that satisfies our shareholders. For instance,

Nicolai Tangen: this need to win. Where do you have that from?

Andreas Berger: I'm a competitive person, but I'm a team player. I always did team sports and I loved it. So, I refer to my leadership team as a football team. Everybody has a role to play. If somebody tries to play other people's roles, doesn't work. So that's something that we're working on and I'm really proud that we are now playing each one's role very effectively because at the end we need to score. Yeah. You've got people in the defense. They need to keep your goal clean. And then you've got people who steer. And then you've got people who have the interface to the markets, the business unit, CEOs for instance, but also asset management.

Nicolai Tangen: Now, you were born in uh Rwanda. Do you think that impacts the way you play football?

Andreas Berger: Oh, I never thought about that. Ronda is a is a beautiful country. I was uh

Nicolai Tangen: But this outside do you feel like um this outside in view? Do you does that impact the way you you think about Swiss Re? I think

Andreas Berger: um maybe one aspect um shaped me as I was confronted with a lot of changes or uncertainties. There was a kuditar and and in Portugal was a revolution. I always take a step back and try to analyze what does that actually mean also for me personally you know for family for for for you as an individual and that probably is something that I applied in business um to not shoot from the hip to really analyze the situation and in today's world with all the uncertainties with changes every day you got to think all the time what does that actually mean don't panic so I call it strategic patience that I apply personally but also professionally.

Nicolai Tangen: Tell me how that works being so analytical and less prone to gut feel.

Andreas Berger: No, no, no, no. I'm a 80/20 person.

Nicolai Tangen: Okay.

Andreas Berger: So, analysis are very important, but you cannot always go for the 100% analysis. The last 20% are actually slowing you down and don't give you that assurance um and that maximum insight anymore. So I'm a really 80% person where saying look as we have 80% let's go out and

Andreas Berger: yeah do it and then course correct uh as we go along. I think that's that made our company quite successful also in this whole transformation that we went through. Um and I'm I'm very happy with this approach. Um yeah I'm a people person so you can analyze to death but at the end of the day we're sitting opposite each other. you know, it's a relationship. It's a trust. And um I have to have a good feeling about this. I always call it the sniff test.

Nicolai Tangen: What's been the most important person in your life?

Andreas Berger: I had many important people. I mean, obviously I could say my family was important and is important and actually every personal interaction that I value is important, but the foundation is a family.

Nicolai Tangen: And who's been um the most important influence uh from kind of outside the world of business? Any particular inspiration you've had?

Andreas Berger: I'm very interested in in international politics. Yes. And I read many books about it. Um and I learned about history and I learned about leadership. So each and every individual had certain specific aspects in a certain context and I was interested in that. Why did certain people take leaders take decisions in a very critical moment and because there was probably a choice now I don't want to pick one name because there were so many very very good different leaders

Andreas Berger: and that's why people say oh who was your um role model I say you know I I I learned from many people in business but outside business it's about yourself your balance um how do you become the person you are today and it's through many interactions through learning a lot by observing and then be yourself

Nicolai Tangen: and if you were to give advice to young people what would that be

Andreas Berger: actually I was um just recently um giving a lecture at university and people ask me exactly the same question so stay curious be open-minded but also feel very grounded and have a balance But when you want to become a leader, there's two aspects. When you want to become a leader, you think about three things. And that's what I try to do also as we operate here with all the changes. Anticipation. You need to anticipate. Imagine a situation that's not today. In business for instance, you need to anticipate a situation. How does AI look like in future?

Andreas Berger: That's number one, anticipation. Number two, selfm motivation. Because everybody will tell you it doesn't work. More than 80% of the people don't like change. They say that they change, but they don't like change. So you need to be self motivated all the time. And thirdly, you need to have inspiration because you need to take people along. So those three aspects are very important. Then the other part that I say do your current job as if it were your last.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah.

Andreas Berger: Don't always look for the next job because you get distracted.

Nicolai Tangen: Absolutely.

Andreas Berger: And then the last thing is and that's really something I believe in because I I practiced it so so many times. Help people do something good for others. Try to help solve a problem for others without expecting anything in return. The rest will come.

Nicolai Tangen: Absolutely. Well, we are recording this on a on a Friday. Uh in Switzerland, it's a lot of snow outside, but you don't ski. So, what do you do?

Andreas Berger: There's many things you can do on a Friday. It's always

Andreas Berger: the evening dinner with a family.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah. What do you read? For instance,

Andreas Berger: I just recently read a book um Clovitz on war. And during my Christmas holidays, I read a book. I can recommend it to you. It's called Jakarandanda. The author is called Gel Fate. He's a French one whose mother is from Rwanda and the father's French. Fantastic book um nice description um about the situation in Rwanda. Um because he went there to find out, you know, who the family of his mother was and um and it related to me. My father's German, my mother's from Rhonda. So, so I think it was a fantastic book. It won some awards in in France. A very well-known author. So, Jackaranda.

Nicolai Tangen: Very good. Well, we'll finish off on with that uh with that recommendation. It's been great having you on. Big thanks.

Andreas Berger: Thank you very much, Nick.