Asia-Pacific reinsurance faces new realities – Aon leaders explain what’s next

Aon’s APAC leaders share their outlook for 2026 across facultative, marine, retrocession, agriculture, casualty and life and health reinsurance with SIRC Today.

Key points:
Fac and casualty thrive on analytics and agility
Climate, geopolitics reshape marine risk
L&H grows as P&C softens

Despite a softening market, innovation, data and capital efficiency are creating new paths to growth and resilience across an increasingly complex regional landscape, Aon’s Asia-Pacific leaders tell SIRC Today.

Geoffrey Lambrou, APAC CEO for facultative reinsurance, Reinsurance Solutions

Under current trends and results, it isn’t a surprise that the market continues to soften. However, we are dealing with an ever-more complex and sizeable risk landscape due to mega-trends globally and across Asia Pacific, and so we continue to innovate to ensure our clients can navigate both the risk challenges and growth opportunities. 

“We are dealing with an ever more complex and sizeable risk landscape due to mega-trends globally and across Asia Pacific.”

Our exclusive facilities launched in 2025 of Marlin and Aon Client Treaty (ACT) provide P&C and specialty clients in the region with fast, effective capacity in various structures. 

ACT, for example, will enable automatic quoting of up to 28.5% of the cession order to deliver faster placements, enhanced capacity and a more streamlined client experience.

We are very proud and thankful to our clients as we deliver very competitive pricing and coverage, irrespective of market conditions, across all specialty areas. This is due to our previous investments in talent, with more than 150 team members across APAC, and in technology, data and analytics that give us proprietary insights.

We look forward to creating an even faster, more positive impact across our amazing region of growth and innovation in 2026.

Ai Ping Chan, APAC marine practice leader, Reinsurance Solutions 

The marine insurance and reinsurance sector faces challenges including rising claims from climate-related events, geopolitical instability affecting shipping routes, tariffs affecting maritime trade, increasing regulatory pressures and inflation driving up repair and replacement costs. Additionally, evolving risks such as cyber threats and supply chain disruptions are reshaping exposures and underwriting criteria.

To assist clients ahead of the 2026 marine reinsurance renewals, the Aon marine reinsurance team advocates proactive risk assessment and transparent communication with our clients to secure tailored coverage and optimal pricing. Leveraging analytics and market intelligence, we can identify trends, benchmark client portfolios and offer strategic advice to enhance reinsurance purchases. Collaboration across our global network allows access to alternative capital and innovative solutions in addition to harnessing traditional marine reinsurance capacities. By facilitating early engagement and data-driven negotiations, we can help clients manage retentions, optimise reinsurance programmes and respond to emerging risks.

“During 2025 we have witnessed continued pressure on APAC retrocession rates, which we fully expect to continue into 2026.”

Ultimately, our goal is to empower clients to make better decisions and drive profitable growth by reducing volatility, enhancing risk mitigation and securing marine-related reinsurance coverages that adapt to the marine market’s complexities.

Tom Drake, APAC chairman of speciality, Reinsurance Solutions

During 2025 we have witnessed continued pressure on APAC retrocession rates, which we fully expect to continue into 2026 in the absence of any major market-changing catastrophe loss activity.

From a supply perspective, capacity is plentiful, with new market entrants and organic expansion of existing markets more than offsetting any capacity withdrawals.

Rather than following the pack by focusing solely on price discount, the Aon retro team will seek to recycle placement over-subscription into greater value for our clients which will include: reviewing current attachment levels – prior to the start of the hard market average multi-territory programmes attached at one in three or four years compared with current one in seven or eight, which has resulted in less likelihood of loss recovery; improving terms and conditions such as broader class coverage, reinstating previously excluded perils, expansion of territorial scope and addressing frequency concerns with earnings protection, such as a form of aggregate cover.

Grant Hollyman, APAC head of casualty, Reinsurance Solutions 

Casualty business in the region has, in the main, been a profitable and efficient use of capital for reinsurers for several years. This is expected to continue in 2026.  In certain regions, insurers and reinsurers are looking to reduce their US exposures. 

 “Reinsurers are increasingly seeking an analytics-led approach to showcasing insurers’ primary exposure as the market becomes increasingly sophisticated.”

There is sufficient capital available to support for casualty books in the region, which will drive price tension in upcoming renewals. 

Reinsurers are increasingly seeking an analytics-led approach to showcasing insurers’ primary exposure as the market becomes increasingly sophisticated.  

For 2026 renewals, Aon expects a flat to a slight decrease in price movement on a risk adjusted basis. Unsurprisingly, loss-affected treaties should expect rate increases in 2026. 

The key measure of success for casualty insurers is the clear articulation of exposures and original rate increases, coupled with underwriting discipline on rate adequacy and a measured, long-term approach from reinsurers. These factors have led to sensible outcomes through recent renewals and are expected to remain so in 2026.  

Wen Chen, APAC head of agriculture, Reinsurance Solutions 

In 2025, the agriculture reinsurance market in Asia-Pacific continues to show strong momentum, with increasing capacity being allocated to innovative and regionally-tailored programs. Clients are seeking broader protection beyond traditional crop insurance, especially in areas like aquaculture, livestock, and parametric solutions.

In Southeast Asia, this trend is reinforced by the rise of government-backed insurance schemes, reflecting stronger institutional support for farmer resilience. Across APAC agriculture, data-driven solutions and digitalization are becoming central to underwriting and claims management.

We expect capacity to remain abundant in 2026, with new entrants and organic growth among existing players more than offsetting any withdrawals. This environment presents opportunities for agriculture clients to secure more favorable terms, provided they engage early and transparently with the market. There is also a healthy agriculture retro market, with carriers seeking protection for their peak zones, and new entrants finding retro as an efficient avenue to attain portfolio diversification. We anticipate this to continue into 2026.

At Aon, we continue to support our clients by designing optimised reinsurance structures and executing targeted market strategies that aim to ensure long-term success.

Danny Alexander, APAC co-head of life and health reinsurance, Reinsurance Solutions

In a softening P&C reinsurance environment, life and health reinsurance is becoming increasingly important to many reinsurers in continuing to seek profitable growth across the market. L&H insurers continue to experience strong underlying growth in their customer base, where both increasing population wealth and high medical inflation are together driving double-digit growth in gross premium volumes in many regions. The risk of natural and human perils continues to trend up, and the transition to Solvency 2, or similar risk-based capital regimes across Asia, is creating an immense opportunity for reinsurers to bring further capacity to the region at attractive prices.

Non-traditional reinsurance solutions, including asset-intensive reinsurance and capital optimisation reviews, continue to gain traction, providing an opportunity for insurers to fine tune their risk capital position, manage their overall balance sheet volatility and enable them to expand their risk appetite and growth ambitions to capture greater shares in this vibrant marketplace. 

We are also seeing an increasing demand from clients in seeking support in claims risk management, particularly around health products.

Aon is investing further in our risk analytics capabilities to help our clients gain real-time insights into their claims data, enabling them to make better decisions in managing these core risks and achieving their strategic priorities. 

Geoffrey Lambrou is the APAC CEO for facultative reinsurance, Reinsurance Solutions at Aon. He can be reached at geoffrey.lambrou@aon.com.

Ai Ping Chan is the APAC marine practice leader, Reinsurance Solutions. She can be reached at ai.ping.chan@aon.com.

Tom Drake is the APAC chairman of speciality, Reinsurance Solutions. He can be reached at tom.drake@aon.com.

Grant Hollyman is the APAC head of casualty, Reinsurance Solutions. He can be reached at grant.hollyman@aon.com.

Wen Chen is the APAC head of agriculture, Reinsurance Solutions. She can be reached at wen.chen1@aon.com.

Danny Alexander is the APAC co-head of life and health reinsurance, Reinsurance Solutions. He can be reached at danny.alexander@aon.com.

For more news from SIRC Today, click here.

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.