In a lot of the conversations we've been having at Reinsurance Towers over the last week - especially when talking to brokers- have featured bold claims that the recession is over.

Third quarter results on the whole were very positive for reinsurers and last month economic data showed that many of the world's economies (including the US but excluding the UK) are now officially out of recession. But can we really relax and assume the best?

Insurer results, while on the whole they have been improving, show that there are many cedents who aren't out of trouble yet. There's also the small matter of a bucket load of reserve releases which have been poured into reinsurers' results, making the picture look far rosier than they actually are.

Promises of hardening rates for 1/1 renewals are leading to some ambitious expansion plans from some reinsurers, if market sources are to be believed - especially in Bermuda. However with cedents still suffering from the recession, promises of solid reinsurance price increases may well fall short.

In turn, this might leave the half-enacted expansion plans with companies struggling to explain the investment community what the hell went wrong with the M&A/decision to add more lines/increase capacity/hire that director who'd been fired from a million-and-one other places.

But perhaps we're just too cynical...

Katherine Blackler

p.s. Don't forget to vote in our reader awards. They close next week so make sure you register your say, click here to vote

Today has been a weird and wonderful day in the realms of Reinsurance Towers. Whilst things have been relatively quiet on the news front, life has certainly not been dull.

You know it's a strange day when...

1. You spend most of your day talking about pirates

2. A whole topic of discussion at an insurance seminar centers around re-housing badgers

3. An industry contact calls you at 2.30am (his time) from the gym to share thoughts on an article you wrote (now that's a workaholic)

4. Your train to work actually arrived on time (those of you who use London's public transport system know what I mean...)

5. That smooth PR person actually just told the truth for once...

Enjoy the rest of your week

Katherine Blackler

p.s. only a few spots left at our Claims and Run-run off seminar on 9th December. Drop me an email for more details at the usual address ([email protected])

As some of you may know Reinsurance Towers discovered Twitter a few months ago (for those of you that are on there themselves we are on there with the username of Reinsurance_Mag ...I've got a great imagination me)

When we first joined we noticed that whilst a relatively large number of insurance people had embraced "tweeting", very few reinsurance folk were involved.

Now things seem to be changing - and not just because of the marketing folk of the (re)insurance world who seem to feel the need to share everything, including what they had for dinner (there are even specialist marketing agencies that will Tweet for you believe it or not) - Reinsurance Towers have even spotted some genuine bonafide reinsurance brokers and underwriters sharing their experiences.

However, there seems to be a lot of confusion within the industry as to what use Twitter could possibly hold other than for the media hacks and flacks.

Whole groups exist online for the purpose of discussing what to do with Twitter and Linked In (we're on there too) and whether it will really catch on. The general consensus seems to be that Twitter will not catch on in our industry unless people realize how it can be useful to them as a business tool.

There have been arguments from the forums and Reinsurance's own industry contacts that Twitter will never catch on but with over 750,000 insurance professionals already on there surely there are opportunities for reinsurers to connect in a new way with their clients and perhaps even create some new contacts?

Reinsurance Towers are even on Facebook. All this social networking gives us something to do when the news is slow.

Let us know if you are using Twitter, Linked In or any other social networking tools and share your experiences. Also don't forget to come and find us (Reinsurance_Mag) and say what you think of what we are doing...just be warned, social networking is dangerously addictive

Alternatively let us know why you are not on there or if you just fancy a good rant

Have a good week

Katherine Blackler