15 September 2015 News

Peak Re to launch in Zurich, target Europe

Franz Josef Hahn, the chief executive of Peak Re, has said the reinsurance company is looking to open an office in Zurich as it starts to seek expansion outside its home market of Asia.

Three years since the company launched, Hahn said he is pleased with its progress and profitability. But 2015 will be a key year in its progress.

“This is a very important year for us,” Franz Josef Hahn, CEO of Peak Re, told Monte Carlo Today. “We launched in December 2012, so this is our third year in business. After two good years we expect to see another profitable year. 2014 was our first year of technical underwriting profit.

“The efficiency and productivity of this year will help us to grow and further reduce our cost ratio. We see that as a young company it is absolutely essential to remain nimble.”

According to Hahn the company posted gross written premiums of $177 million for the first half-year 2015, up from the $100 million for the same period in 2014. In addition, the company has also started a process of growth in carefully targeted areas.

Although Peak Re’s focus will remain on Asia, where its main markets are in China, South Korea, Japan and Indo-China, with some business being written in south east Asia, Hahn said that the company is also looking outside Asia. Previously 7 percent of Peak Re’s business was written in this area; in 2015 this figure has climbed to 27 percent.

Hahn said the company will open an office in Zurich in the near future, to look at opportunities in the European market. Peak Re has also acquired a 50 percent stake in

Nagico, an insurance company that is based and does business in the Caribbean.

According to Hahn, the company intends to seek steady growth in these new areas, as well as others, and has started to write facultative casualty and facultative credit and surety business.

Peak Re has also partnered with the Shanghai Typhoon Institute, with the intention of strengthening knowledge of typhoons and passing that knowledge on to its clients.

“It’s very important for us to not be flashy, but to be a steady reinsurer,” Hahn said.

“We don’t underwrite what we don’t understand. We also understand the need to not rest on our success, but to build a culture as a reinsurer. I am very proud to say that we have our own Peak Re DNA.”

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