Mumbai:
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS), dedicated carrier for corporate and specialty insurance business of German insurance giant Allianz SE, launched their new India reinsurance branch office in Mumbai on Monday and is targeting € 50 million premium over the next five years.
The new reinsurance branch allows AGCS to further expand its presence across Asia Pacific to capitalise on growth opportunities in the Indian market and better serve global corporate clients with business interests in the country.
Mark Mitchell, Regional CEO AGCS Asia Pacific, said: “We are planning to break even in the next three years depending upon the market situation.India has long been a key part of AGCS’s regional portfolio, and I look forward to the even closer collaboration with our business partners that this local branch will allow. As a leading global player in the reinsurance industry, the set-up of AGCS India will strengthen the expertise acquired by our previous operations in the India market and help us meet our clients’ continually changing needs.”
AGCS India Branch will initially offer facultative, proportional, and non-proportional reinsurance solutions on the following lines of business: Property, Liability, Marine, Financial Lines, Construction & Engineering, and Energy. In particular, AGCS sees opportunities in large scale construction projects under the USD 106 billion Bharatmala infrastructure development plan, as well as strong contributions from the automotive, electronics and high-tech communication industries, all of which complement AGCS’s areas of specialist expertise.
AGCS also expects particular demand for reinsurance capacity for cyber and initial public offering (IPO) insurance, offered under the Financial Lines line of business. Increased awareness and a strong digitalization push amongst businesses have led to more enquiries on cyber risk and cover in the country. Significantly, India is ranked as the third most vulnerable country to cyber threats[, and 51 per cent of India risk experts surveyed for the 2019 Allianz Risk Barometer report ranked cyber incidents as their top risk of 2019. India stock exchanges also ranked second globally in terms of IPOs, with the industrial sector being the most active in terms of number of IPOs issued[5].
Sinéad Browne, AGCS Board Member and Chief Regions and Markets Officer for Asia Pacific said: “India’s continued rapid growth and the opening up of the domestic reinsurance market to foreign owned insurers makes it the ripe time to have our own branch in the country. This will allow us to better help clients navigate the continually evolving risk landscape with local underwriting and risk management expertise. India has huge potential to develop into a major reinsurance hub in Asia and we aim to part of this future success story.”
The new branch in India will also benefit multinational AGCS clients with Indian business interests. For example, more than 20 per cent of the clients AGCS serves under its international insurance program, Allianz Multinational, have operations in India. The local branch will provide AGCS with larger access and priority to business ceded by Indian insurers than it would have as a foreign-based reinsurer, and places AGCS in a better position to offer its market-leading capacity and technical expertise to clients.
The India branch is the latest addition to AGCS Asia Pacific’s regional footprint, following on the heels of a new branch office in South Korea in 2017. AGCS is currently present in 11 countries and 16 cities in the region, a list that also includes Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Indonesia, Brunei, Myanmar, Australia and New Zealand.
Business from the Asia Pacific contributed 6.3 percent to AGCS overall global premium volume of EUR 7.4 billion in 2017.
AGCS sees the India corporate insurance market as holding significant potential due to its size, low penetration rates, and expected growth of the economy. India is the world’s 11th largest insurance market and 5th in Asia behind China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by premium volume. However, industry estimates show that India only ranks 73rd in the world with a meagre non-life insurance penetration rate of 0.93% of GDP, suggesting opportunities for future growth as the market matures. Indeed, industry estimates have predicted reinsurance premiums in India to increase at 11-14% CAGR, reaching USD 11 billion in premiums by 2022. Similarly, the India economy has surpassed China as the world’s fastest growing economy every year since 2014, with the exception of 2017[.