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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallWhen reliable claims history is thin, reinsurers cannot price an emerging risk by looking backward alone. Lisa Butera, chief underwriting officer of MS Reinsurance North America, says the task is to combine historical results with forward-looking loss scenarios and examine where exposure could accumulate across insureds, supply chains and lines of business. In a 1 October 2026 interview with Reinsurance News, she discussed that approach in the context of data centres, artificial intelligence, PFAS and microplastics.
Why limited loss history changes the underwriting question
For an established coverage, historical claims can help indicate how often losses occur and how severe they may be. Emerging exposures present a harder problem: the available experience may be too limited to show how a risk behaves across a full range of conditions, or how losses might connect across a portfolio.
Butera’s proposed response is not to discard historical results, but to pair them with prospective scenarios. Underwriters need to ask what future losses could look like, where liability or financial exposure could sit, and whether a single event or underlying hazard could affect several clients or lines. That is a way to reason under uncertainty, not a validated formula that eliminates it.
Pricing discipline still matters in a softer property market
Butera argues that relatively benign recent North Atlantic hurricane seasons in the United States do not show that underlying property risk has gone away. She points instead to continuing attritional losses from severe convective storms in the US and catastrophe losses in other regions. The interview offers no loss series or numerical estimate, so these are her market assessments rather than a quantified account of industry results.
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Her underwriting position is to maintain discipline on price and terms and to map potential accumulation, rather than let recent experience alone justify relaxed terms. She also describes MS Re’s goal as building portfolio-level relationships with key clients across lines and market cycles, not pursuing growth for its own sake.
Where Butera sees emerging exposures accumulating
The risks she discusses differ in their pathways, but share an underwriting challenge: exposure may extend beyond a single project, policyholder or line. The interview identifies areas for analysis, not expected loss amounts or settled coverage outcomes.
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Data centres: look beyond construction
Data-centre risk is not limited to the construction phase in Butera’s view. Underwriters should consider where liability or financial exposure could arise across the wider supply chain. The interview does not name specific supply-chain actors or provide a quantified data-centre loss scenario; it raises the need to map connections beyond the facility itself.
Artificial intelligence: ask how business use could create liability
Butera describes AI as raising questions across more than one insurance area. For directors and officers coverage, one underwriting question is whether a company’s use of AI could raise issues around fiduciary responsibility. General liability is another area she identifies for consideration. These are questions for underwriting and coverage analysis, not conclusions about a particular legal duty or a guaranteed coverage response.
PFAS and microplastics: consider cross-industry accumulation
Butera is concerned that PFAS and microplastics could create exposure across multiple industries. She compares their potential breadth with asbestos and the opioid crisis, using those episodes as analogies for widespread exposure—not as quantified predictions that losses will be equal in scale. Her concern is sharpened by the US litigation environment and the possibility that a shared underlying risk or event could touch multiple insureds, cedents and lines.
The interview gives no projected loss totals for PFAS or microplastics. Its underwriting implication is to look for correlated exposure across a portfolio rather than assess each insured or line in isolation.
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Underwriting comparisons that help expose blind spots
Butera’s comments suggest three practical contrasts for assessing a risk with limited claims history. They are analytical comparisons drawn from the interview, not a formal MS Re framework.
| Question | Narrower view | Broader view |
|---|---|---|
| What evidence informs the price? | Historical loss experience alone | Historical results combined with prospective loss scenarios |
| Where might the exposure sit? | Within a project or direct insured | Across a supply chain and related financial or liability exposures |
| How wide could an event reach? | One insured or line considered separately | Potential accumulation across multiple insureds, cedents and lines |
These contrasts do not supply missing data or settle how a particular contract responds. They help frame what an underwriter needs to investigate before relying on a thin record of past claims.
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How the interview fits MS Re’s stated portfolio priorities
Reinsurance News reported that MS Re’s global portfolio had grown to more than $4 billion following four years of transformation, with the US and Bermuda contributing approximately one-quarter. Those are company portfolio figures as reported in the interview, not independently verified figures.
Butera identifies regional accounts, particularly regional mutual insurers, as an opportunity. In her account, these insurers use reinsurance as a capital tool and value long-term relationships. She also describes momentum in MS Re’s MGA business and says the company prefers partners that value high-quality data, transparency and open dialogue. These are statements about her company’s positioning, not independent rankings of market performance.
What Butera says about casualty conditions
Butera says casualty frequency and severity continue in most lines, with litigation funding contributing to social inflation and nuclear verdicts continuing. She singles out commercial auto and large corporate risks in excess casualty for consistent loss severity and says she sees no reason to relax casualty pricing. The interview supplies no numerical loss estimates or series for these observations.
What the interview does—and does not—establish
- It sets out Butera’s view that scenario analysis should complement historical results when credible experience is limited.
- It identifies possible accumulation pathways involving data-centre supply chains, business use of AI, and PFAS or microplastics across industries and insurance lines.
- It does not quantify expected losses for any of those emerging exposures, provide a pricing model, or establish specific coverage outcomes or legal duties.
The interview was published ahead of the Insurance Leadership Forum, which Reinsurance News said the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers hosted in Colorado Springs from 2–6 October 2026. Butera expected discussions to build on Monte Carlo meetings and inform expectations ahead of 1 January renewals; those remarks refer to the timing described in the October 2026 article.
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