China’s tech drive reshaping insurance opportunity as economic growth moderates: Swiss Re

China needs more than capacity as technological self-reliance and AI infrastructure drive emerging risks higher in both size and complexity, warns Swiss Re’s Beat Strebel.

Key points:
Tech expansion raises stakes for reinsurers
Interconnected risks challenge insurers
Sustainable growth requires discipline

China’s push into AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and green energy is creating exposures that are larger, more concentrated and increasingly interconnected, challenging insurers and reinsurers to keep pace as new risk pools emerge, according to Beat Strebel, CEO of reinsurance China at Swiss Re.

“Following years of rapid expansion, China’s insurance market has entered a new phase of more moderate growth,” Strebel told SIRC Today. “While slower economic growth is weighing on motor insurance and some traditional commercial lines, the overall market remains resilient.”

Swiss Re Institute expects China’s economy to grow by 4.7% in 2026, down from around 5% in 2024-25 but still well above its 2.5% global forecast. Non-life premium growth is expected to remain broadly steady at 3.8%.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan puts high-quality development, technological innovation and systemic resilience at the centre of the next phase of growth. Investment in advanced manufacturing, green development and new logistics networks is creating new risk pools alongside the economic opportunity.

“China’s drive for technological self-reliance and industrial upgrading will drive up emerging risks in both exposure size and complexity,” Strebel said. “These are promising areas, and they require disciplined underwriting, continuous learning and data-driven risk management.”

That is also changing what buyers expect from reinsurance. “Clients will increasingly look beyond insurance capacity and seek actionable risk intelligence to protect assets and operations,” he said. That shift is visible across technology, infrastructure and natural catastrophe exposures.

New risk pools

China’s development of “new quality productive forces”, including the low-altitude economy and humanoid robotics, is introducing new operational, safety and liability exposures. The Eastern Data, Western Computing initiative, built around eight national computing hubs, is accelerating data centres, computing equipment and supporting energy infrastructure in inland regions.

“A key consideration is how risks accumulate and spread,” Strebel said. “Beyond the geographic concentration of physical assets, AI infrastructure relies on interconnected electricity grids, telecommunications networks, cloud services and critical suppliers.”

“Making risks measurable, manageable and diversifiable will be essential to providing sustainable insurance capacity.”

A disruption in one part of that system can affect multiple facilities and businesses, potentially producing business interruption losses well beyond the initial physical damage.

“As these exposures grow, insurability becomes a critical consideration,” he said.

Better operating data, engineering expertise and risk modelling can improve assessment and pricing, but Strebel warns that very large individual exposures, geographic concentration and shared infrastructure or supplier dependencies can create structural accumulation challenges.

“The industry’s ability to make these risks measurable, manageable and diversifiable will be essential to providing sustainable insurance capacity,” he said.

The challenge extends beyond technology. China has experienced average annual economic losses of about RMB330 billion from natural catastrophes over the past decade, while only around 10% of those losses are insured.

In 2025, rainstorms and floods accounted for 69% of direct economic losses from natural catastrophes, equivalent to approximately $24 billion. Along the coast, around 64% of installed offshore wind capacity is concentrated in Guangdong and Fujian, both highly exposed to storms.

Strebel said stronger risk understanding, prevention and adaptation must develop alongside risk transfer. AI-enabled weather analytics, sensor networks, real-time exposure monitoring and early-warning systems can help businesses act before an event.

“For the re/insurance industry, this will accelerate a shift from traditional post-loss compensation towards more preventive and resilience-oriented services.”

Growth with discipline

Despite that, the opportunities remain broad. Strebel identified disaster prevention and mitigation, green development, rural revitalisation, health and longevity, industrial modernisation and the overseas expansion of Chinese companies as areas where insurance and reinsurance can play a larger role.

Wind and solar generation is targeted to increase by roughly 74% between 2025 and 2030, while China aims for its energy conservation and environmental protection industry to reach around RMB15 trillion by 2030, he said.

Chinese companies expanding overseas are creating another source of demand as investment increasingly moves into manufacturing as well as infrastructure. Global reinsurers can support that expansion with international underwriting, claims management and risk engineering expertise.

But new opportunities will also require greater technical depth.

“Accurately identifying, assessing and pricing these emerging risks remains challenging, given the rapid evolution of technologies, applications, consumer behaviour and regulatory frameworks,” Strebel said.

He expects insurers and reinsurers to deepen their technical knowledge, work more closely with manufacturers and operators and build better data.

“As exposures become larger and more interconnected, accumulation management will also become increasingly important,” he said.

“The industry’s next phase of development will increasingly depend on its ability to translate these structural opportunities into sustainable growth.”

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