55067 Who would have thought it? It turns out the worlds of theatre and reinsurance have many similarities.
Both are businesses involving high levels of volatility, risk and finite amounts of capacity. It is surely no coincidence then, that they both also have major global centres in New York and London.
There is clearly something about these places that allows risk businesses to be financed. And of course, it has always been the wealthiest in the business community that have been the biggest patrons of the arts - almost any major exhibition or refurbishment of a historic venue is heavily sponsored by a global corporate or a major business tycoon. We were made for each other.
Take Hamilton, a new musical set in the American revolution. It is setting new records on Broadway and has wiped the floor at the prestigious Tony awards. It is in the hardest market imaginable. Go to Hamilton the Musical's website and try and buy a ticket - you can't.
And I'm not just talking the cheaper seats - and I use that term loosely because the cheapest face value ticket for the show is an eye-popping $139 and prices rise to more than $500 for the best views.
There isn't even any pre-booking to 2017 or beyond. The only way of buying a face value ticket is by entering a lottery for the chance to pick up returns.
Hamilton has a capacity problem. A nation of more than 300 million wants to see it and only a few thousand a week can physically get in to enjoy the show. How about that for rationing supply?
Hamilton needs more capacity and it is in the process of scaling up. There is a Chicago branch, a tour is planned and a London production is coming in October 2017.
Does any of this sound familiar? It might not, because we in the reinsurance business may have forgotten this, but there are times that just like a hit show, our capacity cannot be accessed for neither love nor money.
The truest definition of an ultra-hard market is when even good customers are having to be turned away or have their orders only partially placed.
Like in insurance, in theatre a show isn't a global hit unless it is running simultaneously on Broadway and in London's West End. A big enough hit on either side of the Atlantic will nearly always transfer successfully. Think of London as a massive sidecar to New York and vice versa. Hamilton is likely to be one of those shows and if it does that it will become a global brand. Once everyone in the world has had a chance to see it, either in person, or live-streamed to a movie theatre, a movie version will be made and everyone will go to see it again, buy the souvenir DVD and watch it a third time on Amazon Prime or Netflix.
This is distribution at its sweetest and puts the creativity of even our best and most ingenious global brokers in the shade.
Reinsurers are currently off Broadway, or on the fringe waiting the be rediscovered. There are some interesting experimental productions being cooked up there. Of these original works, some will fail, but some will rise the be the next Phantoms of the Opera, Les Mis and Hamiltons of their day.
What every producer off Broadway or on the London fringe does is dream big and never give up - and that's what reinsurers need to remember to keep doing.
For just as every man needs entertainment and enlightenment, he also needs insurance.
Click here for the first of our Monte Carlo dailies for 2016.
Mark Geoghegan,
Managing Director,
The Insurance Insider