Peak Reinsurance gains ground in China

Peak Reinsurance, a reinsurance company founded in Hong Kong in December 2012, is growing fast in Chinese mainland and internationally to fill the gap in the large volume of uninsured risk in the Asia Pacific.

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As a testimony to Peak Re's well-structured debut and good growth, the company was nominated for the Launch of the Year award by Insurance Insider publication this year.

Franz-Josef Hahn, CEO, says it is the great expertise and talent of his team that makes the company exceptional. Currently Peak Re employs 48 staff, covering 14 different nationalities.

This cultural diversity allows Peak Re to better serve its clients in various markets as they have extensive local knowledge in understanding the clients' true needs.

An additional strength is that Peak Re has structured itself well since the launch to guarantee financial capability to pay out reinsurance claims when needed. "We want to do it right from the start," said Hahn.

"We built up the organization, and placed risk management to the foreground of our attention. This raised the interest of many people, knowing that there's a new reinsurer who was paying a lot of attention to corporate risk from the beginning," he said.

"We could stand at the forefront of our profits, and work with clients on a long-term relationships basis. We have thorough analysis of each and every piece we're getting on the book, so we allow ourselves to analyze the client portfolio and the risks adequately," said Hahn.

Peak Re is the brainchild of Hahn, who previously headed up the casualty division for Munich Re in Hong Kong, and later switched to Swiss Re, eventually progressing to become Managing Director of Swiss Re China in 1998.

These roles brought Hahn close to the Asian market and made him realize the need to improve insurance penetration, particularly on P&C (property and casualty insurance), in Asia in order for the community to avoid from falling back to poverty after natural catastrophe events, and at the same time the business opportunities that follow.

To establish Peak Re, Hahn's team attracted investment from two shareholders, Fosun and International Financial Corp (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. Fosun invested $468.05 million to hold 85.1 percent of the stock while IFC has invested $81.95 million for a 14.9 percent stake.

This means Peak Re had a starting capital of $550 million. In the year ending December 2013, it generated revenue of $103 million. It is rated A- by the rating agency A.M. Best.

As of December 2013, Peak Re was already working with 87 clients in 17 Asia Pacific markets. South Korea, China and Japan were its biggest markets, and other markets include Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Motor and Property were the biggest sectors of Peak Re's reinsurance activities in 2013, and other sectors include marine, engineering, agriculture and casualty.

Hahn said Peak Re works closely with various Chinese P&C insurers, using its own expertise to help them devise strategy and methods to increase P&C insurance penetration in China.

He said in Asia the total insurance penetration rate in 2013 was 5.4 per cent, which was below other more established markets such as US (7.5 per cent) and UK (11.5 per cent). This suggests great room for growth in the Asia Pacific.

But in the long term, Peak Re would also like to expand into Europe, primarily on P&C reinsurance, so that the company can have a diversified portfolio to reduce risks. Ultimately Peak Re would hope to be present in all major reinsurance markets globally, said Hahn.

Meanwhile, Peak Re has a dedicated asset management team which invests the proceeds from the company's reinsurance activities into assets in China and internationally, he said.

Currently China's biggest reinsurance company is the State-owned China Reinsurance. Some Western reinsurance companies have also established branches in China, and others have decided to enter the Chinese market via the insurance market Lloyd's of London's platform.

Hahn said he believes competition is healthy for the market, although most of the time reinsurers will work in syndication with other industry players on various reinsurance programs.