About Berrizal Partners

We advise organisations with complex risk profiles and more than €5m of annual insurance premium spend on how to optimise insurance cost, volatility, and capital—using captives and reinsurance structures.

Practical, implementation-aware, and designed for CFOs, CROs, Treasurers, and boards.

Client profile

For groups where insurance is a material financial line.

Captives are not “risk management projects.” They are balance-sheet and governance decisions. We work with groups where insurance programmes, retentions, collateral, and claims volatility meaningfully impact margins and capital allocation.

Typical signals of fit
  • ■€5m+ annual premium spend across property, liability, specialty, credit, or surety.
  • ■Significant deductibles/retentions, captive ambition, or renewal volatility.
  • ■Complex multi-country programmes, fronting and collateral structures.
  • ■Board-level scrutiny: “Why do we own this structure?” or “What is the ROI?”
What we do

Full captive advisory scope—end-to-end.

Our scope is designed to match how captive decisions actually happen: feasibility, structuring, set-up, implementation coordination, and ongoing optimisation.

As a licensed reinsurance intermediary, we combine advisory with independent retrocession placement — structuring and placing covers that protect captive balance sheets. We can operate as the client’s lead architect, or as a specialist layer working alongside captive managers, auditors, legal, and tax advisors.

Core service lines
Feasibility & business case
TCOR view, retention strategy, economic case, governance readiness.
Captive set-up & licensing
Domicile selection, operating model, regulator-ready documentation (with counsel).
Reinsurance & programme design
Quota share / XoL design, fronting structures, collateral economics.
Ongoing optimisation
Captive health checks, redesign, expansion, re-domiciliation support.
Governance & board reporting
Decision memos, KPIs, underwriting policy, risk appetite, audit committee materials.
Implementation coordination
Workplans and partner alignment across brokers, managers, auditors, and lawyers.
Retrocession structuring & placement
Independent retrocession covers (XoL, quota share, stop-loss) — buyer-side expertise with market access.

Some activities may require regulated parties (broker, manager, legal, tax). We integrate with them and define clean scopes and accountability.

Team

Complementary expertise across actuarial, credit, and captive governance.

Our team combines actuarial structuring, trade credit & surety depth, and captive CEO-level operating experience— built for complex reinsurance captive use cases.

Actuarial
Risk & pricing architecture
Feasibility, loss modelling, reinsurance design, economic trade-offs.
Credit & Surety
Trade credit structuring
Fronting, collateral mechanics, capacity constraints, portfolio economics.
Captive CEO
Governance & operations
Board processes, capital planning, regulatory expectations, execution reality.
How we work

Clear scope. Board-ready outputs. Implementation-aware recommendations. We coordinate with your existing partners and bring accountability to the economics.

Benoît des Cressonnières, Founder & Chairman
Founder & Chairman

Benoît des Cressonnières

Senior executive with over 35 years of progressive leadership in insurance, reinsurance and financial services across international markets. Founded and built Allianz Trade Reinsurance AG (Zurich) from inception to €2.3Bn in premium volume and €270m operating profit, transforming the Group's entire reinsurance strategy into a centralised, high-value centre of excellence.

Deep expertise spanning reinsurance structuring, capital optimisation, treaty negotiation and corporate governance. Proven board-level leader—as Chairman of ICISA, the global trade credit and surety association (100+ members worldwide), and as independent Board Member of Schréder SA—combining C-suite execution with strong governance credentials.

Currently Chairman & Managing Director of Berrizal Partners, providing strategic advisory services in reinsurance, risk management and board governance to leading international organisations.

Considering a captive—or trying to extract more value from an existing one?

If your group spends €5m+ annually on insurance, we can help define a clear path to improved risk economics and governance.

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