Hong Kong’s insurance regulator has announced plans to open an insurance exchange dedicated to providing coverage for projects connected to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The announcement was made at the annual global Brokerslink conference in Hong Kong by Clement Cheung, chief executive of Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority (IA). The Belt and Road Insurance Exchange Facilitation will launch in…
September saw Asia suffer thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in insurance losses in the costliest month of natural disasters so far in 2018. Yet despite the high number of claims, insured losses will be relatively lower than in the US despite more severe damage to property, more instances of business interruption and a significantly higher number of deaths.…
Hong Kong-based reinsurer Peak Re has recruited the founder of Artemis Specialty, an advisory firm for (re)insurers and insurtechs, to become its new chief operating officer (COO). David Cabral’s COO role at Peak Re will make him responsible for business process integration, promoting operational efficiency and driving technology strategy development. Mr Cabral boasts some enviable technology credentials as well as…
Specialty insurer ArgoGlobal has appointed Michael Scala as chief underwriting officer for Asia-Pacific. Mr Scala has more than 35 years’ experience in the insurance sector, half of which was with Australian insurer QBE. Starting as a commercial manager in Western Australia in 1994, he eventually became head of US P&C at QBE Insurance North America in 2010. He has been…
The Indian Government is reportedly considering removing a cap on the level of foreign ownership of its domestic insurance brokers, in a bid to boost the sector. The current rules, from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), allow foreign insurers to own just 49% of any company in the Indian insurance market – from carriers to brokers to…
Speciality (re)insurer Canopius has appointed Nattakorn Wattanaumphaipong as its new head of reinsurance, Asia-Pacific. Based in the (re)insurer’s Singapore office and reporting to reinsurance chief underwriting officer Jamie Wakeling, he will assume his new role from January 2019. Mr Wattanaumphaipong has been recruited from Swiss Re, where he held a number of senior roles during a 13-year career. Most recently…
Social fragilities and a proliferation of autocratic governance in Asia have led to a rise in political risk that could cloud the continent’s dynamic economic growth, according to credit insurer Coface. Asia scored 45% on Coface’s latest political risk ranking, which put the continent behind Sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America, but well ahead…
Japan-based property insurer Sompo has agreed a deal with China’s ZhongAn, to jointly develop technology-led models for the Japanese market. The arrangement follows a recent deal struck with another Japanese company, Softbank, which invested $100m in ZhongAn to finance its expansion into Asia. ZhongAn owns China’s first online-only insurer, ZhongAn Online Property and Casualty, and has become one of the…
The value of premiums written on the Lloyd’s China platform has dropped by 30% during the past year, as a number of syndicates have withdrawn from the Chinese market citing unfavourable terms and conditions. Written premiums in H1 2018 reached £89m, down from £126m in H1 2017 and Lloyd’s has blamed the “deterioration in terms and conditions” for the retrenchment…
The clean-up from Typhoon Mangkhut has begun as the devastated areas of the Philippines, China and Hong Kong assess the loss of life and long-lasting damage that resulted from the most severe storm of the year so far. The super typhoon is also likely to raise the issue of the insurance gap in the region, given that insured losses in…