Swiss Re eyes agriculture growth in Asia

Instead of exploring new lines of business in Asia, the priority should be to insure more people and help close the protection gap, Jayne Plunkett, chief executive officer for reinsurance in Asia at Swiss Re, told SIRC Today.

She said that agriculture in particular is a very important growing line of business in countries where Swiss Re operates in Asia.

“Growing crops is not new to Asia; having an insurance protection is new to Asia, making sure they harvest the crop safely and can keep their livelihoods safe,” she said.

“Once people understand what the insurance industry can do, they will put more of their assets under the insurance umbrella.”

Plunkett explained that Swiss Re is continuing to team up with clients and governments to do more pre-funding of natural disasters.

“These pre-funding programmes help people back into their farms, homes, etc. They help with financial stability post-loss, and grant more stability in the budgeting process,” she explained.

The emergence of new technologies is also fuelling the introduction of new insurance products and new ways of approaching risk, she added.

“Asia is a mixture of very mature markets and newer ones. For the more developing markets within Asia, insurance penetration in some is close to zero, it’s in single digits,” she said. “In the more mature markets, most people are buying some form of protection for themselves.”

In terms of the upcoming Asian renewals, Plunkett said that one could argue that in the property/casualty market, insurers and reinsurers are not necessarily getting the price right on risk.

“At this renewal, I would say that what we look to do is to get the right return for our shareholders, getting the right price for risk,” she said. “The risks are ever-changing, and the market has to keep up with these changes.”

While the focus has largely been on what has been happening across the US, she said the various weather events in Asia are a healthy reminder of the value of the insurance sector and that it gets the right returns for the right price.

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