Global, complex and ever-evolving

By Paul McNamara

(L-R): Asia Insurance Review editor-in-chief and SIRC organising committee chairman Sivam Subramaniam; minister, prime minister’s office and second minister for finance and education Indranee Rajah and SRA chairman and honorary adviser to the SIRC organising committee Marc Haushofer.

Singapore minister, prime minister’s office, second minister for finance and second minister for education Indranee Rajah gave the official keynote address of this year’s SIRC in which she addressed both the environmental and political headwinds facing societies in Asia.

The minister painted a stark picture of the environmental headwinds as she pointed out that in the 1970s Asia was buffeted by an average of 44 Nat CAT events per year with economic losses of $5bn compared to 144 events in 2018 with economics losses of $89bn. “Insurance penetration remains stubbornly low,” Ms Rajah said with only 9% of economic losses in Asia covered.

Bold steps

Focusing on the region’s measures to enhance robustness, Ms Rajah pointed to initiatives like ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Phase 2 that “will leverage expertise as part of the region’s climate resilience-building capabilities,” as well as Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF), domiciled in Singapore.

The minister then went on to talk about the position that Singapore has taken to encourage the growth and stability of the regional alternative risk transfer market through insurance-linked securities (ILS) and CAT bonds. “Asia is catching up with more mature markets and is now in a good position to establish its own ILS market,” Ms Rajah said.

Singapore’s new ILS fast-track application scheme can offer an eight-week turnaround time for new ILS issues.

Dangers of protectionism

The minister then turned her attention to political headwinds that are holding back “the expansion of cross-border trade.” Asia, she said, need trillions of dollars of investment to make sure that it delivers peak trade performance – but investors are still shy as protectionism rises and higher tariffs damage growth prospects.

Insurance, said Ms Rajah, can help protect against this uncertainty and pointed to the specific example of the Belt and Road Initiative Insurance Consortium, an alliance of insurers that supports China’s international development push. “The road ahead will remain difficult unless we work together,” said Ms Rajah.

Hell in a handbasket

By Ahmad Zaki

(L-R): Melissa Hyak, Rowan Douglas, Hauw Soo Hoon, Amer Ahmed, Vijayasekar Kalavakonda and Benjamin Horton.

The world is in dire straits. Climate change leading to rising sea levels and more aggressive Nat CAT events foreshadow a dark future for civilization. “More than 90% of disasters happening currently are a direct cause of climate change, whether it is increasing floods, droughts, serious storms or sea surges,” said World Bank senior financial specialist Vijayasekar Kalavakonda. “And the major impact is felt in marginalised, rural communities.”

However, climate change is a global problem that currently affects and will continue to affect all corners of society. Climate scientists are in great demand currently, as governments and industry try to figure out which regions are most at risk and how aspects of global society, such as maritime trade, will be affected. “Climate science is rapidly changing, both in terms of how fast climate is changing and where it’s most at risk,” said Nanyang Technological University chair of the Asian School of the Environment Professor Benjamin Horton.

He brought up statistics on how the sea level might change in Sweden over the next century, based on low- or high-carbon emissions scenarios. Scandinavia, which has been seeing sea levels fall over the past 20,000 years, might see sea levels rise by 91cm in a high-emissions scenario. Its sea level will continue to fall if its emission rates are brought down to the level specified in the Paris Agreement.

“As a community, we have absolutely no knowledge about what happens to coastal landforms, ecosystems and environments when we get a change from long-term sea level fall to sea level rise,” he said.

Bringing it closer to home, he pointed out that in a low-emissions scenario, Singapore would see the sea levels rise by 51cm by 2100. But in a high-emissions scenario, that rate changes to 20mm to 30mm per year by 2100, a scenario which no engineering solution or adaptation could address, said Professor Horton. “Every single ecosystem, corals and mangroves, die. There is a distinct difference.”

Can the reinsurance industry handle the financial loss?

Professor Horton also said that in a high emissions future, the world would be seeing one-in-200 year events every year by 2050. “In a low-emissions future, you can maintain most of your current financial projections, but under a high-emissions future, you can’t,” he said. “At that point, what can reinsurance companies do?”

“Our industry has a lot of the knowledge and tools that can influence the future of the climate,” said Allianz Re CEO Amer Ahmed. “We need to fight harder, because I think sometimes we do take too much of an internally-focused view and we have instead think of the broader view, because that’s what our role in society demands.”

For the sector to remain viable and sustainable, it needs to continue having discussions with governments and broader industry to help society achieve a sustainable future, said Willis Towers Watson CEO of capital, science and policy practice Rowan Douglas. “Even if there was a rapid change in emissions towards the target set by the Paris Agreement, we would still face enormous levels of loss, partly through climate change and partly through population and exposure changes. Insurance has always been a private-public proposition, so we have to redouble our efforts to have the confidence to engage with governments and institutions to say ‘this is what is economically sustainable from a capital point of view’.”

Getting to grips with ESG

By Ed Broking (Asia Pacific) head of reinsurance Marcus Taylor

Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of risk of loss from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium. It has long operated on some fundamental principles governing action and conduct across the industry.

However, as the world becomes more complex and the world of business evolves to address the challenges associated with various economic, environmental, social and governance issues, should these fundamental principles of insurance also evolve? Should they adapt to more ethical trading and investment principles within our industry?

Corporates - both inside and outside the (re)insurance industry - have long run sustainability initiatives under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and many companies have CSR policies in place. However recently, the conversation has moved on somewhat to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

Whilst ESG is intrinsically linked to CSR, there are differences. Many corporates refer to CSR at a day to day level for volunteering and philanthropic activities, while ESG is more intertwined at a macro level measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of investments in a company – the driving force behind new corporate and industry led principles.

Across the financial world, including (re)insurance, there has always been pressure of growth and driving shareholder returns. However, recent discussions at the Business Roundtable (an association of CEOs of America’s largest companies) have seen some move the discussion away from solely immediate shareholder value, to driving business purpose and principles as stakeholder value.

The leading corporations that make up the Business Roundtable are now stating that customer value, investing in employees, fair and ethical supplier relationships, and care for the community and environment should now form the basis of the purpose and responsibility of a business; in addition to long-term shareholder value.

The Asia Pacific perspective

One of the most advanced and high-profile industry-led initiatives is through the United Nations Principles for Sustainable Insurance. It has published global guidance on the introduction of integrating ESG risks into insurance underwriting. Whilst the UN PSI are a wonderful example of the industry working together for the greater good, the picture is less positive in Asia. Upon closer inspection, only 3% of the signatories are from the developing Asian economies.

The listing of 67 signatories includes many of the world’s leading (re)insurance organisations, but the relative low numbers in developing Asia are of concern, especially given the impact that natural catastrophes can have in these territories.

It is not just the Asian (re)insurance industry where ESG hasn’t taken hold. This is a common theme across many industries in Asia – in a region which could and should be leading the way.
Japan is one of the nations taking the lead in Asia, with the government now offering incentives on trade insurance terms. Companies wanting to qualify for such incentives must first proactively offer information on their climate change countermeasures.

Issues such as climate change cannot be tackled in isolation or by individual group companies. Rather, to make any meaningful impact these topics should be met head-on by the entire industry in collaboration with industry bodies (eg UN PSI) and governments.

Further, in an industry so driven by financial soundness, all the major rating agencies have now recognised that companies are increasingly exposed to ESG risks, ultimately impacting their financial resources. Thus ESG evaluations are being carried out that could have an impact on future credit ratings.

Benefits and incentives

We are a risk management industry, but maybe instead of seeking short-term gains through market cycles, we should be taking a longer-term view - adapting our principles as per the US Business Roundtable and becoming more accountable for some of the world’s pressing issues.

At the macro level, (re)insurance in Asia is seriously affected by climate change – with the ever-increasing frequency and severity of natural catastrophe events. Adoptions of ESG principles should help with future loss mitigation, whether through a stalling of rising seas levels or reduction in the number of typhoons impacting the region.

As recognised by the American Business Roundtable, organisations need to develop principles with a purpose. Immediate shareholder value is no longer the sole key driving factor. The adoption of ESG principles into a broader new set of insurance principles will help to deliver a more sustainable industry, with better underwriting results through loss mitigation and risk selection; and ultimately a more sustainable global environment.

In Asia however, it is extremely important to maintain balance to avoid pricing consumers out of the market. It remains critical to further close the protection gap through greater insurance penetration. ESG principles in underwriting should not and do not mean pricing yourself out of risks, but also looking at the broader social context. This is where the industry needs assistance from the world leaders in ESG in the developing economies across Asia.

Appetite for mortgage reinsurance in Asia expected to increase

By Capsicum Re head of global mortgage analytics Stephen Mathews

Over the last decade we have seen the growth and rise of the Asian reinsurance markets – Asia is now a huge and sophisticated market with capital to deploy and the intelligence to seek out the right opportunities. However it’s not immune from wider global reinsurance trends, notable excess reinsurance capacity, depressed pricing and a challenging environment.

Against this backdrop reinsurers are looking to diversify their portfolio and are finding opportunities in mortgage reinsurance. It is one of the very few attractive classes as it is profitable, delivers attractive margins with low loss ratios, and is data rich.

Most people hear mortgage risk and think of its role in the collapse of the US housing market and the financial crisis in 2008. But the market has changed a lot over the last decade. The risk is underwritten more vigorously, is supported by vast amounts of public data, and new legislation is in place to ensure that the factors that contributed to the 2008 crisis cannot be repeated.

US mortgage leads the way

The US mortgage market is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world. The majority of mortgages originated by banks and non-bank lenders are sold to the US Government Sponsored Entities (GSEs), which were chartered by the US federal government to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the US housing market.

Historically, the GSEs exclusively transferred credit risk on mortgages with a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 80% or more to a dedicated group of US-based monoline primary mortgage insurers (PMI). More recently, the GSEs have become increasingly innovative in their efforts to reduce taxpayer exposure to mortgage credit risk by transferring it more broadly to private investors and diversified global (re)insurers, as well via their CRT (Credit Risk Transfer) and MRT (Mortgage Risk Transfer) programs.

The CRT and MRT programs have been well received by investors and (re)insurers. To date, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (the GSEs), have transferred over $400bn of mortgage loans including nearly $20bn of risk in force (RIF) to the (re)insurance market. Due to the strict underwriting standards imposed by lenders and the GSEs following the 2008 financial crisis, credit quality of US mortgages remains exceptional.

Diversification

The opportunity for diversified global (re)insurers to participate in the mortgage (re)insurance sector is extraordinary. The market is large, growing, and is truly global. The US GSEs are actively seeking to expand their panel of participating (re)insurers and value the additional diversification that non-US counterparties provide.

Freddie Mac’s vice president of single-family credit risk transfer, Mike Reynolds, noted in a recent interview that while over 60% of Freddie Mac’s (re)insurance counterparties are non-US domiciled, the vast majority consist of (re)insurers based in Bermuda, the UK and Europe. Asia represents an attractive and relatively untapped market where the GSEs are eager to expand and there is certainly interest.

Opportunity for Asian reinsurers

There are two key opportunities for Asian reinsurers. The first is in providing fresh reinsurance capacity for the US GSEs. An educative process is needed here to help reinsurers understand the opportunities offered and the true nature of the risk, rather than perceiving the risk to be as it was prior to the 2008 crisis.

Secondly there is the opportunity to explore the role that reinsurance can play in extending lending and developing home ownership and house building in Asia, which is hugely beneficial to a domestic economy. Capsicum Re’s experience in designing, implementing and managing the highly successful and first of its kind ‘NewBuy’ programme in the UK gives us a unique insight into the potential opportunities in Asia.

Any previously held negative, or apprehensive views on mortgage risk are changing as the understanding of the risk and the significant opportunities it offers increase. There is more capacity and choice available to lenders now that mortgage insurance is no longer restricted to a few specialist mortgage insurers, and this is leading to a growing interest from global markets.

Asia is a huge market with Singapore and Hong Kong standing out as strong hubs for reinsurance and we anticipate appetite for mortgage reinsurance growing throughout this market.

Mechanisms of collaboration among emerging market reinsurers

By Société Centrale de Réassurance‘s CEO Youssef Fassi Fihr

Global insurance and reinsurance markets are faced with a dilemma. On the one side, advanced and emerging insurance markets continue to liberalise and harmonise, led by an internationalisation of solvency and accounting standards.

On the other, trade barriers are rising – both in emerging and advanced markets to enhance market security, but also to simply shelter markets from competition.

In a recent study, SCR commissioned Zurich based consultancy, Dr. Schanz, Alms & Company to investigate the measures that emerging market reinsurers deploy to counter a number of perceived disadvantages relating to their resources, legacy, rating or the regulatory framework of their domicile.

Inward emerging market premiums remain relatively small

According to our research, the trade flows of reinsurance premiums from other emerging market regions are small – both in absolute and relative terms.

The African reinsurers reviewed write about 8% of their GWP outside of the continent. About 50% of these inward reinsurance premiums orginate from Asia, 40% in the Middle East and about 10% from Europe and the Americas.

The Asian reinsurers reviewed – although far larger in size than their African counterparts – wrote even less business outside of their region on a relative basis. The share of inward reinsurance premiums coming from non-Asian markets accounted for less than 4% of GWP.

Two thirds of that business orginates from advanced markets. Only the Middle Eastern reinsurers reviewed followed a far broader internationalisation strategy with 87% of premiums sourced from outside the region. Of those, 80% were written in advanced markets. Only 4% stemmed from Africa and 17% from Asia.

Furthermore, for many emerging market reinsurers, the government is a sizable or even the exclusive shareholder.

Braod spectrum of collaboration available to expand franchise

Emerging market reinsurers may also seek shareholdings, retrocession and reciprocal exchanges as well as pool solutions or partnerships to access business outside their home turf.

Shareholdings for instance can take many forms and shapes, with reinsurers investing into their peers, insurers investing into reinsurers or vice versa. From an emerging market reinsurers’ perspective these investments may serve to strengthen their own equity base, diversify risks or secure a reliable source of revenues.

Many of the emerging market reinsurers reviewed were fully or partly government owned. Often founded to insure state-owned enterprises, to insure risks that otherwise might remain uninsured or to prevent the outflow of hard currency, these companies frequently benefit from compulsory cessions.

Primary insurers often act as investors of emerging market reinsurers too, with the reinsurer benefiting from cessions of their shareholders, while the primary owner may improve its risk diversification, reinsurance purchasing or access to know-how.

Frequently emerging market reinsurers maintain a portfolio of investments in primary insurers too, or use shareholdings in other reinsurers to secure access to business and build a balanced portfolio.

We estimate that a meaningful share of the non-domestic inward reinsurance premiums that we analysed is a reflection of an underlying explicit or implicit reciprocal exchange of premiums written to secure an ongoing collaboration.

Emerging market reinsurers overcome disadvantages through collaboration

To verify the validity of our findings, we interviewed some leading emerging market reinsurers and asked them where they see the main challenges of emerging market reinsurers in expanding their franchise beyond their home geography.

In essence the interviewees concluded that due to their size and legacy, emerging market players lack the advantages of a large and historically grown balance sheet which provides opportunities for diversification – both in terms of liabilities and assets.

Finally, all interviewees stated that they practice some kind of collaboration with other insurers or reinsurers to diversify their book by accessing higher rated business or markets outside their home region.

These collaborations encompass the full spectrum of coopertions ranging from formalised joint ventures to loose partnerships or risk pools administered by a neutral industry association or representation.

However, these collaborations are not confined to emerging market players but may include advanced market players as well to access not just business but also know-how or the experience with products.

The secrets of reinsurers’ marketing strategies

By Amir Sadiq

Based on Asia Insurance Review’s casual survey of marketing departments within reinsurance companies in Asia, it appears that constant communication with clients and maintaining a strong presence are critical prongs of their marketing strategies.

Customer-centricity is crucial

The need to focus on customers has been repeated so often in the insurance industry that it has practically become mantra.

Industry leaders are constantly reminding their colleagues and business partners alike of how important it is to begin a development process with the customer in mind, and always to listen to customer feedback. In this respect, reinsurance is no different.

Reinsurers are constantly monitoring their Net Promoter Score to see where they stand among their contemporaries and what their clients think of them.

Constant engagement with clients is also carried out through surveys and interviews to understand their needs and expectations better. Regularly staying in touch with clients also helps with a brand’s visibility, an ever-present reminder from reinsurers to their clients that they are there to provide the services and assurances necessary.

The (social) media

Social media has established itself as a mainstay in the digital era, connecting billions of people through a single platform. The power to share thoughts, pictures or videos with that many people all over the world has made it a fundamental aspect of advertising and marketing.

While there are several social media platforms that reinsurers can use to market themselves, the B2B and corporate nature of the industry has made LinkedIn the platform of choice.

Scrolling through a reinsurer’s corporate LinkedIn page will more often than not display a steady stream of updates that features their latest accomplishments and endeavours, insights from their resident experts (either in text or video), and their participation at industry events.

Thought leadership

Thought leaders are not only able to provide valuable insights to the current meta within the industry, they also possess the innate ability to identify trends before they coalesce.

Reinsurers place great emphasis on thought leadership, with some of the bigger players having entire divisions populated by experts and scientists dedicated to performing research on the industry and everything related to it, and eventually publishing a report available to all.

Periodically releasing research reports not only keeps up reinsurers’ visibility and presence, it also serves as a way of showing their clients that they have the expertise to offer the best services and that they are doing whatever they can to stay at the forefront of industry developments.

Trade secrets?

Perhaps the most peculiar and interesting finding from the survey was that a select number of reinsurers – including some prominent names in the reinsurance scene – chose not to participate in our industry-wide survey.

Perhaps catastrophe losses from previous years forced them into making marketing budget cuts and this might have left them sensitive to questioning of any sort.

There is also the chance that marketing is such a critical part of a brand’s image and profitability that these reinsurers just did not feel comfortable sharing their secrets to success. If that is true, what tricks of the trade could they possibly be hiding that are so valuable?