Tomorrow, another month sees another renewals season begin and as usual competition from the WHAM brokers to see who can have their report out first.

Willis were first out of the gate this month, brining out their report on April renewals before April had even begun and the report was certainly a gloomy read.

According to the report, reinsurers will be picking up most of the tab for the $16bn catastrophes that have hit the world in Q1 - and their results will make for a nervous read - and according to the broker as soon as the reinsurers begin to recover they will be hit by a more-active-than-usual hurricane season.

Added to this Willis Re adds exposure to sovereign debt, less plentiful reserve releases and inadequate pricing to reinsurers' woes.

However, we all know that Willis have been having a hard 18 months with rumors of more redundancies in the air in their UK GI divisions so could all the negativity be a reflection of their current perspective on the insurance world?

Will some reinsurers begin to crumble under pressure as all the negativity in the report could lead some to believe? We at Reinsurance Towers think not but we will certainly be putting Q1 results under a lot of scrutiny this year