China: China Re expands overseas on the back of 70% domestic market shares
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Oct 2018
China Reinsurance (Group) Corporation has agreed to acquire Chaucer, a Lloyd’s-focused international specialty business, from US-based The Hanover Insurance Group for $950m.
This expands China Re’s presence in the Lloyd’s market and on the international stage. Chaucer is the 11th largest Lloyd’s insurer, writing around $1.2bn of gross premiums in 2017.
The acquisition of Chaucer by China Re follows an alliance it formed in 2012 with Catlin, which operates one of the biggest underwriting syndicates at Lloyd’s. The alliance created a new Lloyd’s special purpose unit called Syndicate 2088 which was later transformed to a standalone Lloyd’s syndicate which started underwriting on 1 January 2015. At that time, China Re said that its long-term strategy was to increase its activities in the international markets and that it planned to establish its own Lloyd’s managing agent company eventually so as to fully integrate itself in the Lloyd’s market.
Meanwhile, solvency reports from reinsurers show that China Re and its core subsidiaries, China Prop-erty & Casualty Reinsurance (China Re P&C) and China Life Reinsurance (China Re Life) dominated the segment, with 69% of the combined premiums for the first half of this year. Their combined premium in 1H2018 was CNY66.6bn ($9.7bn). A