“The key question is whether reinsurers can maintain underwriting discipline or will irrational competition emerge, leading to another traditional soft market cycle,” said AM Best. If reinsurers can maintain underwriting discipline and pricing integrity despite record levels of capital, there may be a new market paradigm at work, AM Best indicated. However, the resolve to maintain underwriting discipline ultimately faltered for many reinsurers in the face of market competition. To deploy their capital, reinsurers’ management teams may increasingly seek acquisitions, business expansions, or by increasing shareholder dividends to return capital accumulated during the hard market, AM Best said. “These alternatives could ultimately support pricing discipline by reducing pressure to deploy capital solely within the property catastrophe reinsurance market,” added the report.