AXIS Re CEO Arora says the reinsurer is ‘on its way’ to being among the top 10 global reinsurance industry firms

AXIS Re has ambitions to be in the top 10 of the biggest global reinsurers and its chief executive officer Steve Arora sees progress towards that goal.

“Strategically, if we rewind a couple of years, we have repositioned the company for our growth strategy and to be a more client-focused organisation.

“We’ve set a bold aspiration that we want to be a top 10 global reinsurer, and we feel that we’re on our way,” he said.

Arora said that financially the firm had a strong Q1 and Q2 in 2019, but Q3 had been “disappointing”.

“That’s not only an AXIS Re issue, it’s an industry issue. The biggest driver of our results has been the typhoon in Japan, but that’s our product and we’re there to support our clients and the Japanese communities in these sorts of situations,” he said.
However, he is optimistic about the future.

“The short-term challenge is taking the right portfolio management actions that help us respond to the learnings in Q3, and more broadly, being able to take advantage of improving market conditions and managing the cycle appropriately.

“One size is not going to fit all in that sort of balance,” he said.

In the long term, the reinsurer wants to continue to be more relevant to large global clients and make sure it increases its penetration in markets where the firm can do more.
Arora said a major developing global industry theme is businesses “trying to find the right risk/reward balance across different products”.

“Put another way, we all need to ensure that rates are adequate for the trends we see.
“That’s going to force everybody to think about the technical aspects and their view of risk. “The entire industry needs to get that right across many different geographies and product groups. It’s an industry challenge that we are facing,” he explained.

Les Loh, president Asia-Pacific of AXIS Re, said that market pricing and terms and conditions adequacy in Asia-Pacific have been a big point of discussion at SIRC 2019.

“To move forward, this region needs to see a correction of the T&Cs, although it is a diverse market here, with some more developed than others,” Loh said.