…all the Peak Re underwriters dealing with international markets have proven track records and are recognised professionals in writing international risks outside its homebase.
A growth story
When Peak Re was founded in late 2012, the company focused exclusively on establishing its presence in its core Asia Pacific region in its first year. However, as soon as 2014 Peak Re started its global expansion to conquer the Europe, Middle-East and Africa, or EMEA, region and the Americas.
By the end of that year, Peak Re already wrote 20% of its premiums outside of Asia Pacific – 12.3% in EMEA and 7.4% in the Americas. By 2017, when Peak Re’s total premiums had risen to US$ 1.1 billion, the “international business” or rather the Non-Asia-Pacific business of Peak Re stood at close to 40% of premiums – 18% coming from the EMEA region and 20% from the Americas.
This success is rooted in some strong commonalities and solid foundations. Firstly, as a guiding principle, the company applies the same underwriting standard to all markets and clients, where it writes business. Its geographic expansion outside its home markets in Asia is in no means just to diversify its book of business by providing excess or naïve capacity to the international market.
Quite the contrary, Peak Re’s success is based on the premise that it only writes business where it can demonstrate its expertise and fully understand markets and the cedants’ business proposition. Thus, all the Peak Re underwriters dealing with international markets have proven track records and are recognised professionals in writing international risks outside its home base.
Secondly, Peak Re writes all its business on its “one underwriting platform”, which combines the company’s market expertise, with its underwriting knowhow and its analytical capabilities. Thus, the company pursues an identical underwriting approach, irrespective to where underwriters or cedants are based. All decisions are routed through Peak Re’s Hong Kong headquarters to assure that each cedant profits from the full range of the company’s expertise and the security of its capital base.
Throughout the past five years Peak Re has perfected this approach to assure that clients will benefit from the swift responses of a seamless system as Peak Re does not have to follow lengthy decision making processes. Furthermore, the unique underwriting platform provides not just coherence but also cost advantage and efficiency.
Focus on client-centricity
While pursuing its “one underwriting platform” set-up, a pre-condition for Peak Re’s international success is also its client-centric approach. For all clients Peak Re follows the same procedure: Peak Re underwriters have to know their client, product and market context and be comfortable to build a relationship which offers the potential to be mutually profitable and grow over time. Thus, in each renewal Peak Re’s focus is typically as much on writing further business with existing cedants as it is in providing coverage to new clients.
As part of its international expansion coupled with its premise on client proximity, Peak Re established its fully capitalised and licensed Swiss subsidiary in 2016, while in Asia it was authorised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a life and general reinsurer in 2017 and set up a Labuan branch in Malaysia in the same year.
International clients appreciate Peak Re’s approach of writing risks: considering the breadth and length of the client’s product offering and aiming at nourishing long- term relationship. That is particular true with small to mid-sized insurers, many of them mutuals, who prefer to maintain a well-balanced and composed reinsurance panel. Rather than relying on a few large capacity providers, they choose to partner with Peak Re. To them Peak Re’s Asian origin and capital base provide them with further diversification benefits for their panel.
Insuring the underinsured
It is often these cedants – frequently underserved by those players geared more towards short-term capital gains – that make up Peak Re’s international client segment. Thus typically, in Europe as in the Americas, Peak Re also grows its portfolio in non-standard product segments where clients need their reinsurer to add value and develop tailored solutions with them. In the US for example, these may be in non-standard auto, casualty or professional liability or in niche segments where insurers provide cover to customers who require protection beyond commoditised product suites.
