APAC ‘chessboard is changing’

With a myriad of pressures on the Asia-Pacific (APAC) reinsurance market, it is essential that players “recognise that the chessboard is changing” as the COVID-19 pandemic situation appears to be easing, said Annie Leong (pictured left), regional underwriting manager, APAC, at Liberty Mutual Reinsurance (LM Re).

Her comments came during a joint interview with LM Re colleague James Green (pictured right), underwriting manager, in London, for Intelligent Insurer.

Leong said that over the past couple of years, and specifically the last year, natural catastrophe frequency has “increased tremendously” in APAC alone.

“With such frequency, the claims are stacking up. Retro is becoming more expensive. Going forward, underwriting discipline is definitely a focus.”

Further pressure is coming from global economic conditions such as rising inflation, especially with all the economies so tightly intertwined and with the cost of operations increasing.

“It’s important that cedants pay attention to the quality of the risk being accepted, and that the appropriate measures are undertaken before underwriting them.”

Another key issue for Leong is ensuring that policyholders have people with the right skills in place to manage and maintain these risks, which is something LM Re will be discussing with its cedants, particularly as the reinsurer has seen “a lot of risk losses over the past couple of months”, she said.

Shifting sands

The pandemic situation is easing in APAC and a lot of countries are returning to a sense of normality. However, Leong said: “We have to recognise that the chessboard is changing, it’s not going to be the same. We can’t do what we did before.

“We are going into the market, highlighting to our intermediaries and cedants that we need improved data to work with. It’s not like in the past, such information will no longer be sufficient, things have changed. We need good data and transparency.”

LM Re launched its regional underwriting platform in Singapore, where Leong is based, in January 2020 just before the pandemic struck. The platform focuses largely on property and casualty business. Leong’s aim is to build, maintain and strengthen the reinsurer’s relationships with cedants in the region.

“For us, the most important thing about the platform is that we’re in the same time zone, we understand the different cultures, and speak the languages.”

All this, in addition to the backing of the strong mutual status of LM Re, has “helped to propel us”, she said.

The platform was launched to boost the reinsurer’s existing APAC business, something it had been running from its London and Paris base for a long time.

Green was the first reinsurance person to join Liberty and has been with the company for 20 years. He heads up reinsurance on the property treaty arm for the London and rest of the world region, which encompasses Singapore and APAC, particularly. “All of the region’s property reinsurance business flows through me,” he explained.

“Business is considerably better than it was this time last year. We still have a way to go in terms of market conditions and we need to have a better understanding of underlying risks.”

Green highlighted the issue of “rampant inflation in some parts of the world” and was clear that climate change is “obviously a massive issue”, which is impacting the lower end of reinsurance programmes and attrition.

LM Re is seeing improvements in pricing and volumes, but Green said that this needs to be viewed through the lens of a tougher trading environment.

“LM Re has been here for a long time, so we have a very established portfolio of business and a pretty good understanding of where it’s a good place to underwrite and where it’s not. Our plan is to obviously make that even better, while supporting our clients where we can.”

Commenting on the progress of the Singapore platform, Leong said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, during which borders were shut, the reinsurer’s network has expanded a lot over the last two-and-a-half years.

“The good relationship we have with brokers and cedants has helped us in terms of business acquisition. While I would say that improvements can still be made, overall, we are definitely happy with where we are right now.”

Annie Leong is regional underwriting manager, APAC, at LM Re. She can be contacted at:  annie.leong@libertyglobalgroup.com

James Green is underwriting manager, London & ROW, at LM Re. He can be contacted at:  james.green@libertyglobalgroup.com