Beijing office switch means closer ties to China for Mapfre Re

Mapfre Re’s decision to convert its representative office in Beijing into a branch reflects its commitment to being a long-term player in the market and its plans for line development and greater diversification, Javier San Basilio (pictured), deputy general manager and chief underwriting officer for the reinsurer told Intelligent Insurer.

“We’ve been aiming to do this for quite some time,” said San Basilio. “We decided a few years ago that this is the route we wanted to go down to show commitment to the market and to have a better infrastructure in place.”

The opening of the branch office will help ensure that Mapfre Re is seen more as a local participant in the Chinese market.

“The way we write business won’t change massively, but we will have closer contact to clients and it will bring opportunities for us to have a more diversified portfolio,” he said.

The new branch is currently pending regulatory approval. The process began in August 2022 and must be completed by August 2023.

The Spain-headquartered reinsurer’s presence in China is not a recent development. It has been doing business in the country since the 1980s, so by the time San Basilio was posted in Manila from 1996 to 1999, the company’s business in the Chinese market was already well established. The foundation of a branch in Beijing simply cements Mapfre Re’s long-running commitment to doing business in the country.