New licences in China reflect rapid market growth

The re/insurance market in China continues to grow apace, with the new licences coming into the market one of the main talking points in the industry in China, Alan Zhang, managing director of Continental Insurance Brokers, told EAIC Today.

“Korea and Japan are stable—growth there is not so big, but in China it is growing very fast,” he said. “In the past 10 years the total assets of the insurance industry in China have doubled.
We have a large population, and domestic demand is still very strong even though the global economy is growing slowly.

“China strongly supports re/insurance growth, and the fact that more people are applying for reinsurance licences in the Chinese market is proof that reinsurance is attractive.”

Zhang noted that while more and more capital has rushed in to the Chinese re/insurance industry, Chinese capital has been aggressively purchasing both domestic and overseas assets, including insurance companies.

Continental Insurance Brokers is the largest reinsurance broker in China and is headquartered in Beijing, with seven offices in China’s other major cities and a total of 100 staff.

“We are proud that we are a totally independent broker,” Zhang said. “Our shareholding is purely insurance professionals.”

The company is currently pursuing healthy growth by identifying new areas of opportunity.

“We grow by developing new lines and new business. We always try to be innovative and find some specialty or new area in which to develop ourselves.”

One such opportunity is motor extended warranty, and Continental Insurance Brokers has a subsidiary in Shanghai to develop it.

“We are also doing some special risks. We do business globally and are now are serving more than 450 global accounts in China,” he said.

“The challenge is rising competition. More competitors are coming into the market—in 2003 there were only 25 brokers in China; now there are about 430.”