reinsurance
re·insur·ance/ˌɹi.ɪnˈʃʊɹ.əns/noun
reinsurance is a noun meaning “Insurance purchased by insurance companies that spreads the risk associated with selling insurance around so the danger of one large monetary loss is…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-I-N-S-U-R-A-N-C-E and has 3 syllables (re·insur·ance), and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of reinsurance is reinsurances.
What does reinsurance mean?
noun
- 1
Insurance purchased by insurance companies that spreads the risk associated with selling insurance around so the danger of one large monetary loss is minimized. Such insurance and catastrophe bonds are backstops to insurer insolvency from unexpectedly large losses.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce reinsurance?
- US /ˌɹi.ɪnˈʃʊɹ.əns/
- US /ˌɹi.ɪnˈʃɝ.əns/
Reinsurance has 3 syllables, split re·insur·ance in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-NaomiAmethyst-reinsurance.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of reinsurance
- reinsurances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is reinsurance?
Reinsurance appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 36,176th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you abbreviate reinsurance?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of reinsurance: re.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Reinsurance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense insurance purchased by insurance companies:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | réassurance |
| German | Rückversicherung |
| Spanish | reaseguro, reaseguración |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does reinsurance come from?
From re- + insurance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).