Mike McGavick will be a keynote speaker at the Bermuda Convergence 2017, organisers ILS Bermuda Ltd announced today.

The chief executive officer of Bermudian-based insurer and reinsurer XL Catlin will feature at an event expected to attract more than 300 delegates on October 18 and 19.

Last year delegates from 13 different countries attended the Bermuda Convergence event — a networking event covering the alternative reinsurance, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralised reinsurance landscape.

Greg Wojciechowski, CEO of the Bermuda Stock Exchange and ILS Bermuda chairman, said: “Mike is well known in the industry and has been at the centre of the changing nature of risk for more than two decades — not just in the insurance industry — but also in political, public affairs and community service activities around the globe. I’m sure his insights will prove invaluable to our delegates.”

Mr McGavick is chairman of the Geneva Association, a think tank of the international insurance industry.

He has received numerous recognitions for his leadership in the industry including: Insurance Day’s Industry Achiever of the Year, Insurance Leader of the Year by St John’s University School of Risk Management, one of the top 100 Game Changers in the last 100 years of the insurance industry by Leaders Edge, the Bermuda Insurance Institute’s (Re) insurance Person of the Year, the Review magazine’s Industry Personality of the Year and Reactions magazine’s Insurance CEO of the Year, among others.

According to the Bermuda Monetary Authority, ILS issued from Bermuda represents 73.9 per cent of total outstanding capacity as of the end of the first quarter of this year.

This year’s event features ‘Bermuda Shorts’ topics including: run-off, rated reinsurance, market uncertainty, insurtech, fair value, longevity trends, cyber, natural catastrophes, emerging risks, and a special panel on “Flood — working together to close the gaps and mitigate the risk”, as well as the popular annual panel with leading investors.

Kathleen Faries, deputy chair of ILS Bermuda, and head of Tokio Millennium Re’s Bermuda branch, said: “With everything happening in the cat market, 2017 looks to be an interesting year.

“There is no doubt Convergence 2017 attendees will have plenty to talk about and no shortage of relevant topics to learn from during our ‘Bermuda Shorts’.”