Peak Re’s disciplined growth and diversification strategy

Philip Hough says Peak Re is looking for growth in selected overseas markets, but Asia will remain its core.

KEY POINTS
Aim to double premium, profit
Asia still central to growth
Selective and phased Specialty expansion

Peak Re’s new leadership has unveiled more detail of its growth strategy, which targets a doubling of premium and profit over the next five to seven years. It is eyeing growth in property/casualty and specialty lines as well as expanding its geographical footprint – while keeping Asia at the centre of the business.

“We’re exploring growth opportunities on property/casualty as well as specialty, but very much in a controlled way.”

“Asia will remain our core,” Philip Hough, chief underwriting officer at Peak Re, told Monte Carlo Today. “It’s our home region. We have a very strong standing, with strong client relationships, and we want to remain true to that identity. That gives us a distinctive perspective. While many global reinsurers look to Asia to diversify established US or European portfolios, we are building internationally from a strong Asian base.”

Hough joined the Hong Kong-based reinsurer in April, shortly before Victor Kuk became chief executive. The company refers to the strategy internally as “2X Plus”, reflecting its ambition to substantially increase premium and profit over the medium term. The “Plus” encompasses the products, expertise, markets and distribution capabilities needed to make that growth sustainable across the cycle.

“We’re exploring growth opportunities in property/casualty as well as in specialty, fac and structured solutions,” Hough said. “However, we don’t aim for growth for growth’s sake. Rather, our strategy builds on existing strengths and will be implemented in phases over a time horizon of five to seven years. We want to build the capabilities and market position to grow sustainably through the cycle, while being ready to capture the growth opportunities when market conditions become more attractive.”

Growing from Asia

Hough expects China and India to provide organic growth, alongside opportunities across Southeast Asia and other selected Asian markets. Protection gaps across catastrophe and other lines leave room to expand its product offering and coverage with existing clients.

Beyond Asia, the company is looking at opportunities in North America and Latin America. Its North American portfolio is weighted towards casualty; it wants to add property and specialty business to existing relationships.

Potential areas for product expansion include facultative reinsurance, as well as accident and health, agriculture, credit and surety, and mortgage business. Energy, engineering and other technical lines form part of its medium-term ambition – but it will invest in the right talent first.

“Areas that need expertise and know-how are also lines of business where you can play a more active role in setting pricing and terms and conditions,” he said. “Property catastrophe remains a core technical class, but programme structures and market-clearing terms can leave less room for individual differentiation on certain placements.”

The reinsurer plans to assess risks across its portfolio rather than manage each class in isolation. A changing risk landscape means connections between exposures are becoming harder to judge from historical losses alone.

That challenge is particularly pronounced in Asia. Hough noted that an “AI boom” has increased high-tech exposures involving data centres and semiconductor risks. This has reshaped the region’s risk landscape and reinsurers have less historical experience on which to base their underwriting decisions.

“Emerging risks are such that we don’t have the luxury of years and years of statistical experience,” he said. “This is where underwriting judgement becomes particularly important. To make informed decisions, we need to introduce quite a lot of forward-looking analytical work, scenario testing and a clear understanding of how risks may evolve over time.”

Risks in real time

Peak Re wants to give underwriters a more timely and integrated view of the risks driving portfolio volatility. It is refining its view of catastrophe risk and examining how non-catastrophe exposures could accumulate across the portfolio.

Hough said that underwriters need “a very clear view on what technical pricing adequacy looks like” with business assessed against Peak Re’s return requirements, capital consumption, diversification benefits and overall portfolio fit.

This is especially important in the current market, which is broadly softening. Property reinsurance rates, particularly for catastrophe business, have softened during 2026. While relatively low catastrophe losses helped reinsurers maintain strong results, Hough acknowledged that falling rates are putting pressure on margins.

The next test will be whether that pressure on rates extends to terms and conditions. “Whilst we’ve seen pressure on property rates, and cat rates in particular, there’s been continued discipline around attachment points and exposure to frequency and attritional-type losses,” he said. “We still see good reason and evidence that underwriting discipline is holding firm.”

Higher attachment points established when the market hardened have left cedants retaining a higher share of the risk. “We don’t really hear about secondary perils anymore, because many of these exposures are now viewed as material drivers of loss in their own right,” Hough said. “More robust reinsurance structures and higher attachment points provide an additional layer of protection, while helping reinsurers manage exposure to non-modelled and emerging risks more effectively.”

Philip Hough is the chief underwriting officer at Peak Re. He can be contacted at: philip.hough@peak-re.com

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