Reinsurance is a contract by which an insurer has taken a direct part of it transferred insurance to another insurer, which therefore takes the responsibility to pay the proportion that corresponds in the event of the risks specified in the insurance contract.
The risk can be assumed that technically an insurance company have a limit, after which imposes the need for reinsurance to transfer to other companies such excess risk.
The basic rule for establishing the limit of risk that can assume is in the uniformity of capital insured for each company.
To avoid an imbalance that can cause lack of uniformity in the capital, the companies reinsure part of insurance that exceeds the normal limit of insurance capital.
The limit of the risks that can run an insurance company is called full. The company that gave the surplus of its full and transferor is called a reinsurance liabilities. The company that takes the reinsurance is called the grantee, and a reinsurance asset.
In turn, a reinsurance asset may be the subject of a new reinsurance with another company. This is called retrocession reinsurance. Usually companies pay to the transferee cedants the same premium charged to policyholders and paid them a commission higher than that payable to their agents or brokers.
In our country reinsurance is regulated by INDER (National Institute of Reinsurance), which monopolizes the domestic reinsurance companies and 30% approx. The foreign companies. In turn the I.N.D.E.R. can go back to their reinsurance companies operating in foreign country or foreign insurers.