Growth of Reinsurance in India:
Building depth for the next decade
By Sanjay Radhakrishnan, CEO, Edme Insurance Brokers
India is one of the fastest-growing major insurance markets in the world, and Allianz Research’s report
expects its premiums to continue growing at more than 10% a year. Reinsurance is already a large part
of that story: more than US$ 13 Bn (INR 1,12,305 Crore) of reinsurance premium was accepted in FY25,
up 11%, including business written by direct insurers. Most of it draws on a general insurance base of
US$ 38 Bn (INR 3.36 Lakh Crore) of gross direct premium in FY26, up 9.3%. Yet non-life insurance is still
only about 1% of GDP, against a global average of 4.3%, leaving a huge room to grow. For the industry,
the more interesting question is not how fast the market grows, but who will underwrite that growth.
Policy has done much of the groundwork. Raising the foreign investment limit in insurance to 100%
opened the door to investment in the sector. This year’s Union Budget then doubled the tax holiday for
GIFT City units to 20 years. It is a clear signal that India wants reinsurance capital to settle here. Global
reinsurers, Lloyd’s capacity and new domestic players are responding, alongside our national reinsurer,
which remains the anchor of the Indian market.
What new capacity has changed
India’s treaty market was well supplied with capacity to begin with. What the new entrants have
changed is the proximity of this capacity: with reinsurers now underwriting from within India, they sit
closer to cedants, and decisions might be taken faster. It has also brought more choice, making this a
buyer’s market. As Vinod Krishnan, who leads our treaty reinsurance business, recently said, “Capital is
flush and reinsurers are under pressure to grow. There is capital and they have to deploy it, so it is good
times for the buyer of reinsurance.”
GIFT City is still in its early chapters, and its first wave has laid strong foundations. Reinsurance written
through its offices more than tripled in FY26, to about US$610 million, and the first quarter of FY27
alone added another US$400 million, as per IFSCA reports. It has brought global reinsurers closer to
Indian risk, given new India-focused players a platform to build from, and let markets already here
deepen their presence. Most of that business is health, property and motor; The lines India’s largest
projects depend on – engineering, marine and liability, are still a small share. The next phase of growth is
depth: fresh capital, and the specialist appetite for the very largest risks that India still depends on global
reinsurers for.
Where India still draws on global markets
The capacity has become deep, India can now absorb close up to a billion dollars of probable maximum
loss on a single risk, yet the largest and most complex risks still look overseas for part of their cover.
Kunal Khanna, who heads our facultative reinsurance practice, sees this most clearly in large hydro and
port risks, which still find deeper appetite abroad, while oil and gas draws on both markets almost
equally. Reinsurance works by spreading risk, and the very largest exposures belong across many
balance sheets, not one market. The opportunity is to keep raising what India can retain: every new

dam, port, refinery and renewable energy project adds exposures of exactly this kind. New forms of
cover will help too. Parametric insurance is a real area of growth in India.
What it will take
Three things will decide whether today’s capacity becomes lasting protection.
▪ Talent. India needs a deeper bench of underwriters, actuaries and catastrophe modelling
experts working on Indian risk, in India. Every reinsurer that arrives adds to that pool, and the
industry should invest in it together.
▪ Data. New capacity can price Indian risk on evidence only if the evidence exists. Brokers hold
some of the richest placement and claims data in the market, and we see making it usable for
cedants and reinsurers as part of our job.
▪ Policy that keeps pace. The reforms of the past two years have done a lot to open Indian
reinsurance market. The next step is keeping the onshore and GIFT City frameworks well aligned
as it will help that capital flow where Indian risk needs it.
▪ Partnership through the cycle. Soft markets are where relationships are built. With climate
volatility pushing up weather losses, today’s conditions will not last forever. Buyers who choose
partners for continuity and certainty of claims payment, not price alone, will be the ones who
still have support when the market hardens.
For a broker, this moment rewards understanding both ends of the placement: Indian risks and the
global balance sheets that can carry them, and global risks that can draw on India’s growing
underwriting talent.
India has the growth, and the capital has arrived. The task now is to turn that capacity into protection
that lasts.