HDI Global eyes strong Asia-Pacific growth on back of 2022 results

HDI Global will continue its strong growth path in the Asia Pacific by launching into the single project professional indemnity and political and credit risk businesses, alongside building out its new representative office in Thailand.

As HDI Global published strong 2022 results, Graham Silton, managing director of the insurer’s Singapore branch, said the regional business enjoyed an “exceptional” year and has exciting plans for 2023 and beyond.

“We had very strong premium growth and a very profitable combined ratio. It was further pleasing that every line of business contributed to the growth of the branch,” Silton said.

The Singapore branch is also responsible for HDI Global’s operations in Malaysia, which delivered significant growth and profitability, said Silton. “Externally, our perception and market relevance is so much stronger, which is a testament to the investments we have made in our recruitments, expertise and capabilities,” he added.

HDI Global’s Singapore operation assists HDI Global Specialty, which added an impressive €600m in new premiums last year to reach €3.1bn, by writing certain specialty lines of business on its behalf.

Mark Fleiser, managing director of HDI Global Specialty Australia, said momentum will be maintained this year.

“Based on the good cooperation between HDI Global and HDI Global Specialty, we were able to sustain business in financial lines and crisis management in a healthy manner. We also see that our opportunities and relevance improve constantly. This is something we absolutely want to focus on in 2023 and onwards to leverage more and more synergies between HDI Global and HDI Global Specialty in the region and as it relates to specialty lines,” explained Flesier.

Both carriers have a clear vision for the future, he added. “Through our cooperation we will start to develop single project professional indemnity (SPPI) business and political and credit risk business using HDI Global in Singapore,” revealed Fleiser.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for HDI Global in Asia Pacific, not least because of Covid-19 restrictions.

“The Singapore branch has a very wide geographical mandate looking after clients right across southeast Asia, India and the Middle East. We are in a people business and Covid presented many challenges due to the inability to meet brokers, cedants and clients in person. Having visibility and presence is so important to safeguard the business we have and grow across our region. Fortunately, in the second half of 2022 we were able to welcome visitors to Singapore and travel to meet with our business partners,” explained Silton.

“The global economic volatility and war in Ukraine, like most other territories, presented us with business challenges, although I believe we have navigated them very well by diversifying our book across our region,” Fleiser added.

Silton is optimistic about the future. “We recently received approval to open representative office in Thailand and have just appointed a local marketing director to expand our physical presence in the region,” he said.

Fleiser added: “Asia Pacific is a key development market for us, and we are actively looking at providing new products and services to our clients entirely across our suite of products in commercial and specialty. In line with our strategy, we will look to make use of the opportunities this region has to offer in the years to come.”

The buoyant mood in HDI Global’s Asia-Pacific operations comes on the back of an excellent group-wide performance in 2022.

On a worldwide scale, HDI Global grew its premium income by 17.9% to €8.9bn last year. The currency-adjusted increase was 12.9%. Key growth areas were liability, property and specialty lines.

The insurer said that growth was driven both by new business and rate adjustments, partly as a result of inflation.

A drop in frequency losses pushed down the combined ratio to 95.7% from 98.7% in 2021, despite an increase in total large losses and inflation effects. As a result, HDI Global has almost reached its mid-term combined ratio target of 95%.

The group said this reflects the positive effects of measures taken to increase profitability since 2019.

High large-loss claims due to natural disasters impacted business by €270m last year. In addition, reserves for losses in relation to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine totalled €36m.

Operating profit at HDI Global climbed to €252m from €196m in 2021. The division contributed €177m to parent group Talanx’s net income. This is up from €143m the previous year.

Edgar Puls, CEO of HDI Global, said: “HDI Global took advantage of the hard markets worldwide and grew profitably. Since 2018 we almost doubled our gross written premiums. To its rise in 2022, both commercial lines and specialty lines contributed almost equally. Our growth results from new business as well as rate changes in existing business, which underlines the strengthening of our portfolio quality.”