The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) is set to pay 5 percent more for its reinsurance programme when it renews at 1 November, The Insurance Insider reveals.

TCIP purchases EUR 1.5 billion of cat cover in excess of an attachment point of EUR 175 million, which is supposed to provide protection for a 1-in-250 year event.

This comes as a surprise as during Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous, some analysts estimate that the rates will soften in absence of a major cat loss.

A possible explanation is the fact that the Turkish cat pool is widely acknowledged to be a poorly rated programme.

Secondly, the programme is dominated by MUNICH Re and SWISS Re, both of which pushed to increase their already considerable lines in the last renewal.

Market sources said that MUNICH Re and SWISS Re have over half the programme. The TCIP's annual reports show that other major participants include SCOR, PARTNER Re and MILLI Re.

The TCIP was created by the Turkish government in 2000 after the major Marmara earthquake and provides insurance for more than 3.5 million homes in Turkey