GREENLIGHT CAPITAL RE, LTD. (GLRE) Business

Item 1. BUSINESS

Unless otherwise indicated or unless the context otherwise requires, all references in this Form 10-K to “the Company,” “we,” “us,” “our,” and similar expressions are references to Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. and its consolidated subsidiaries. Unless otherwise indicated or unless the context otherwise requires, all references in this Annual Report to entity names are as set forth in the following table:

We have included a Glossary of Selected Reinsurance Terms at the end of “Part I, Item 1. Business” of this Form 10-K.

All dollar amounts referred to in this Form 10-K are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Tabular dollars are presented in thousands, with the exception of per share amounts or as otherwise noted. Due to rounding, numbers presented in the tables included in this Form 10-K may not add up precisely to the totals provided.

Additionally, we disclosed Non-GAAP financial measures in this Form 10-K. Refer to “Part II, Item 7, Management Discussion and Analysis - Key Financial Measures and Non-GAAP Measures” for further details.

Company Overview

Established in 2004, we are a global specialty property and casualty (“P&C”) reinsurer headquartered in the Cayman Islands and listed on NASDAQ (ticker: GLRE). We believe that our reinsurance and investment strategy differentiates us from most of our competitors. We conduct our operations principally through two wholly-owned licensed and regulated subsidiaries: Greenlight Re, based in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and GRIL, based in Dublin, Ireland, in addition to our Lloyd’s platform, Syndicate 3456. Greenlight Re provides multi-line property and casualty reinsurance globally, while GRIL focuses mainly on specialty business. Further, since 2018, our Innovations business unit has supported innovative, technology-driven insurance partners, both in the form of seed capital and reinsurance capacity.

The London market specialty business is central to our underwriting portfolio. In 2020, we established a UK marketing Company, Greenlight Re UK, to increase our London market presence. On January 1, 2023, we acquired a Lloyd’s corporate member, GCM, that provides underwriting capacity for various syndicates (including Syndicate 3456) that underwrite general insurance and reinsurance business at Lloyd’s. Prior to acquiring GCM, we sourced our Funds at Lloyd’s (“FAL”) business through the same corporate member. The ownership of GCM complements our Syndicate 3456 and provides us more control over the FAL business.

Our goal is to build long-term shareholder value by providing risk management products and services to the insurance, reinsurance, and other risk marketplaces. We focus on delivering risk solutions to clients and brokers who value our expertise, analytics, and customer service offerings, while complementing our underwriting activities with a non-traditional investment approach designed to achieve higher rates of return over the long term than reinsurance companies that exclusively employ more traditional investment strategies.

Following the business growth momentum in 2024 and 2023, we grew our reinsurance business by 10.7% in gross premiums written during 2025 while maintaining a strong financial position and liquidity. Supported by strong net cash flows from operating activities, we made further stock buybacks and repaid most of our outstanding debt in 2025. In light of our strong balance sheet and steadily improved operating performance, A.M. Best Company, Inc. (“A.M. Best”) upgraded our Financial Strength Rating to A (Excellent) from A- (Excellent) with a stable outlook for

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our principal operating subsidiaries in November 2025. At December 31, 2025, we had $2.2 billion of total assets and $0.7 billion of shareholders’ equity, and grew our fully diluted book value per share by 13.8% during 2025.

Company Capital Stock

We have one class of common stock, our ordinary shares. Each ordinary share is entitled to one vote per share. However, except upon unanimous consent of our Board pursuant to Section 11(1)(c) of our Fourth Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (the “Articles”), no holder is permitted to acquire an amount of shares which would cause any person to own (directly, indirectly or constructively under applicable United States tax attribution and constructive ownership rules) 9.9% or more of the total voting power of the total issued and outstanding ordinary shares. In connection with certain proposals that passed at our 2023 AGM relating to the elimination of our former dual-class share structure, our Board consented to David Einhorn beneficially owning more than 9.9% of the total voting power of the total issued and outstanding ordinary shares, up to the amount of ordinary shares beneficially owned by Mr. Einhorn at the time of the consent (i.e., 6,254,715 ordinary shares, which represented 18.5% of the outstanding ordinary shares as of December 31, 2025). Mr. Einhorn is the Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors and the President of Greenlight Capital, Inc. (see "Investments” in this Item 1).

Business Strategy

We continue to prioritize long-term growth in diluted book value per share as our primary financial metric in measuring the Company’s performance. The five-year compound annual growth for our diluted book value per share was 8.8% at December 31, 2025. We also measure our short and long-term underwriting performance based on our net underwriting income. We have incorporated these two key performance metrics in our incentive compensation plan to align employee and shareholder interests.

Our business is comprised of the following three strategic pillars:

Open Market Underwriting Strategy

We strive to grow our diverse book of business by responding timely to changing market conditions, prudently managing our lines of business, and driving sustainable shareholder returns.

We offer a diverse range of risk management products and services across market segments and geographies. Our small scale, relative to our global competitors, enables us to be more agile in allocating capacity to the most promising risks and classes. We write business on a non-proportional (or excess of loss) and proportional basis (also known as pro rata reinsurance, quota share reinsurance or participating reinsurance) across a range of classes in the property and casualty market. Our underwriting approach varies by class and type of opportunity:

•Where our expertise is sufficient to evaluate the risk thoroughly, we will generally seek to participate in syndicated placements negotiated and priced by another party that we judge to have market-leading expertise in the class or as a quota share retrocessionaire of a market-leading reinsurer; and

•Where we have domain-specific expertise and a high level of market access, we may seek to act as the lead underwriter to achieve greater influence in negotiating pricing, terms, and conditions.

Further, the size and diversification of our underwriting portfolio will vary based on our perception of the opportunities available in each line of business at any given point in time. As our focus on certain lines fluctuates based on market conditions, we may only offer or underwrite a limited number of lines in any given period. We seek to:

•mitigate underwriting volatility over the long term by focusing on short and medium tail risk;

•target markets and lines of business where we believe an appropriate risk/reward profile exists;

•attract and retain clients with expertise in their respective lines of business;

•employ strict underwriting discipline; and

•select reinsurance opportunities with anticipated favorable returns on capital.

Innovations Investments and Underwriting Strategy

Since 2018, we have been making strategic capital investments in startup companies and managing general agents (“MGAs”). In addition to the potential for higher investment returns over the long term, this strategically positions us for long-term access to a stream of attractive underwriting opportunities directly with our investees, coupled with

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new sources of fee income through our insurance and reinsurance platforms. For many of our strategic investments, we have observer rights with the investee’s Board of Directors, providing us with high-level transparency into the investee’s business performance.

To capitalize on global opportunities, in 2022 we created Syndicate 3456, a Lloyd’s syndicate-in-a-box, with a Lloyd’s A+ financial strength rating (see Ratings below). Until the end of 2025, Greenlight Re was the sole capital provider for Syndicate 3456. Starting in 2026, we have secured 22.5% of third party capital to support Syndicate 3456’s projected business growth. We believe that this arrangement also enables us to generate fee income. Furthermore, in late 2023, we incorporated Viridis Re as an exempted segregated portfolio company (“SPC”) in the Cayman Islands. Through segregated portfolios of Viridis Re, we offer a turn-key “captive-as-a-service” alternative for current and future strategic partners, which we believe provides a more cost-effective insurance and reinsurance solution, quicker “go to market” alternative, and shared risk taking and resources opportunities.

During 2025, we have expanded our Innovations business, with gross premiums written increasing 28% to $121.6 million (see “Reportable Segments" within this Item 1. Business). As a result of building a strong reputation and brand in the insurtech industry in recent years, we continued to grow our pipeline opportunities in 2025, positioning us for further growth in the foreseeable future, including scaling our Syndicate 3456. In response to this recent growth, we established a whole-account retrocession program with a group of reputable reinsurers, in which we agreed to cede 28.5% of Innovations-related contracts in 2025 in return for an override commission income. We have increased this retrocession program for 2026 to 33%. This strategic initiative enables us to grow our share in promising businesses while efficiently deploying our capital. As result, we can provide greater reinsurance capacity to the startup companies and MGAs (mainly in the insurtech industry) and be meaningful supporters of our partners. This also positions us favorably for further portfolio diversification, fee income, and sustained profitability in the Innovations segment over the long term.

Value-Oriented Investment Strategy

Our value-oriented investment strategy, managed through Solasglas, is designed to maximize returns over the long term while minimizing the risk of capital loss. Unlike the investment strategies of many of our competitors, which invest primarily in fixed-income securities either directly or through fixed-fee arrangements with one or more investment managers, our investment strategy is focused mainly on long and short positions, primarily in publicly-traded equity and corporate debt instruments. See “Investments” within this Item 1. Business for further information.

In late 2025, we began investing restricted cash and cash equivalents held in certain regulatory trusts for the benefit of our U.S. cedents in a fixed maturity investment portfolio to improve the yield on the restricted assets that we are unable to invest in Solasglas. The fixed maturity investment portfolio is managed by a third-party investment manager.

Reportable Segments

We have two reportable segments: Open Market and Innovations.

Refer to “Part II, Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” (herein referred as “MD&A”) for additional information relating to our reportable segments and related underwriting performance and “Part II, Item 8. Note 18 “Segment Reporting” to the consolidated financial statements for further details on our reportable segments and a breakdown of our gross premiums written by geographic area of risks insured.

The following table presents the gross premiums written for the most recent three years:

(1) Corporate includes gross premiums written from Innovations’ related property runoff business. Negative gross premiums written reflect adjustments to original premium estimate.

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Open Market Segment

Our Open Market segment is led by our Group CUO, with over 25 years of P&C reinsurance experience. Our Group CUO also oversees the underwriting activities of our Innovations segment (see below).

We provide treaty reinsurance to insurance companies on a global basis, written on a proportional or non-proportional (also known as excess of loss) basis. The Open Market segment has the following lines of business:

•Casualty: includes primarily general liability, umbrella, multiline casualty, and workers’ compensation coverage.

•Financial: includes primarily mortgage, trade credit, surety, transactional liability, and financial multiline coverage.

•Health: includes primarily accident and critical illness coverage.

•Multiline: includes predominantly FAL business, coupled with multiline commercial and personal auto liability, BOP, and multiline commercial coverage.

•Property: includes mainly commercial property and property catastrophe coverage.

•Specialty: includes primarily agriculture, cyber, marine and energy, aviation and space, specialty multiline, and WPVT coverage.

The majority of our Open Market business is produced through reinsurance brokers worldwide. Brokerage distribution channels provide us with access to an efficient, variable cost and global distribution system. In some cases, intermediaries also provide other services, including risk analytics, processing, and clearing.

We aim to build and strengthen long-term relationships with global reinsurance brokers. Our underwriting team has relationships with most primary and specialty broker intermediaries in the reinsurance marketplace. By maintaining close relationships with brokers, we believe that we will continue to obtain access to a broad range of reinsurance clients and opportunities.

We seek to strengthen our broker relationships and become the preferred choice of brokers and clients by providing, where applicable:

We focus on the quality and financial strength of any brokerage firm we conduct business with. Brokers do not have the authority to bind us to any reinsurance contract. Their commissions are generally determined based on a percentage of gross premiums written.

The following table shows the percentage of our Open Market’s gross premiums written by broker, shown individually where a broker accounted for 10% or more of the total, in any of the last three years: