QBE Re is ready to share its ‘refreshed’ ambition with client base, says CUO

QBE Re, the reinsurance division of QBE Insurance Group, is displaying the fruits of its restructuring to clients in Monte Carlo.

In May, QBE Re announced significant changes to its organisational structure as part of the reinsurer’s strategy to further align and unify the global structure of its business. As part of this restructuring, Peter Wilkins (pictured) was appointed to the newly created role of chief underwriting officer, and taking ownership of underwriting performance, strategy, and planning.

Global product leaders were appointed for each of QBE Re’s five lines of business: property, casualty, accident and health, specialty and life, and they all report to Wilkins.

Speaking to Intelligent Insurer, Wilkins highlighted an advantage of being part of the QBE Insurance Group: access to capital.

“We can lean on the group’s balance sheet and we’ve had fantastic support from our international CEO, Jason Harris, and our global CEO, Andrew Horton, in their desire to grow the business,” Wilkins said.

“They’re willing to invest, from a capital perspective and an infrastructure perspective as well, so capital is available to support our growth ambitions and, if we see opportunity, more will be made available as well.”

Such is the backing of its parent company that when Horton announced QBE’s strategic objectives in its Q2 analyst call, its reinsurance division felt his message mirrored its own discussions.

“It felt as though Andrew had been listening to our conversations because, although we may have been using slightly different words, the outcomes were absolutely clear,” Wilkins said.

First, portfolio optimisation. “We’d been working on an optimal business mix for QBE Re because we have all classes of business covered, from life reinsurance to property retro, and everything in between, if you look at those as two different ends of a product scale,” he said.

Second, the enterprise. “The reason for changing our framework and our strategic model is to work collectively across the business, so the enterprise thinking, the connectivity across QBE Re, is key,” he said.

Third, fulfilling its potential. “That’s how we deal with clients and brokers to maximise our opportunity, which absolutely filled into what Andrew was saying.”

“QBE Re is pivoting towards a slightly different client base than we previously entertained,” Wilkins added, as a sustainable approach to growing the business.

“Sometimes there’s an assumption that growth and profitability are divergent, but we don’t believe that,” he said.

Meeting clients

Monte Carlo is the team’s first opportunity to gauge reaction to the restructure.

“We’re looking forward to engaging with our clients at Monte Carlo and then at Baden-Baden, which give us an opportunity to tell them about the strategic changes we’ve made and reinforce how that can be beneficial to them, and how the solid, refreshed, QBE Re will look in the foreseeable future,” Wilkins said.

“I’ve worked at QBE Re for 23 years and this is the chance for the company to fully release the potential in this business. I hope the excitement we feel internally will start to be felt externally across our client base as well,” he concluded.