Here's a good piece of renewal intelligence from Chris O’Kane, CEO of Aspen speaking at the Merrill Lynch January reinsurance renewal conference call last week.

You won't find a better description of the way the market is balanced today.

I particularly like the contrast of the introduction of total sum insured wind deductibes in the Northeast US, with the soft and squidgy aviation market and the story of an Italian specialty account being lost to a 30% price chop.

The account loss was described as "soft market stuff".

"...there is still room for some silly things to go on." shrugged O'Kane.

And then there is the fact that reinsurers simply can't charge much more - insurers and original clients simply buy the same monetary amount becasue their budgets are largely fixed - then they run the rest on their own balance sheets.

"Soft market stuff" indeed!