Munich Re in China has promoted Yaoling Bai to the role of senior property treaty underwriter and nat cat consultant.
Bai has been with the firm since February 2019 when she joined as a property treaty underwriter. Prior to this, she worked for RMS for nearly two-and-a-half years as senior product manager, a role that followed almost three-and-a-half years at Swiss Re where she was a nat cat specialist.
This comes against the backdrop of the country opening its borders to international insurers and reinsuers. The potential for growth in China’s insurance industry will be attractive to firms such as Munich Re.
Figures from GlobalData last year suggest that the insurance industry in CNY 1.36tn ($196.8bn) in 2020 to CNY 2.13tn ($313bn) in 2025, in terms of direct written premiums (DWP). Those figures also posited that the general insurance industry in China is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.5% over 2020-2025. However, GlobalData said that the forecast remained shadowed by regulatory changes, the ongoing economic challenges, and the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Motor insurance was the largest insurance line accounting for 60.7% share of the general insurance DWP in 2020, with flat growth of 0.7% due to changes in regulations, which lowered mandatory motor liability premium prices by up to 50%.
Personal accident and health (PA&H) and property insurance were the second and third-largest general insurance lines with a share of 12.2% and 11.3%, respectively, in 2020.
PA&H insurance provided by general insurers recorded the highest growth of 21.2% in 2020 and benefitted from the rising medical expenses and tax exemptions. This insurance line is expected to maintain double-digit growth in 2021 and 2022.
Property insurance also recorded a strong growth of 14.0% in 2020 and was majorly driven by agriculture insurance which accounted for over 50% of the property insurance DWP that year, GlobalData reported.
Analysts also noted that government subsidies on premium prices and insurance to cover frequent cat-cat losses supported the growth of agriculture insurance in China.
And new product development initiatives such as the recently proposed grain insurance are expected to enhance the coverage of agriculture insurance over the coming years.
Overall, property insurance is expected to grow by over 11% in 2021 and 2022, helped by growing demand from the agriculture industry, as well as large-scale projects from belt-and-road and renewable energy projects.
GlobalData’s figures came around the same time that the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission moved to lower restrictions on the entry of foreign insurance brokerage companies. Then, Reinsurance News wrote that the country is looking to build a new insurance intermediary market system, with improvements to the service level of its insurance intermediary market, and to better serve the national economy and social development.
