inreon Announces New Expansion in Asia
inreon, the online reinsurance platform founded by Munich Re and Swiss Re in 2000, announced a further expansion of its operations in Asia with both Korean Re and China International Re, two of the region’s leading reinsurers, agreeing to write business via the platform.
Korean Re, founded in 1963, had net premium written of Korean Won 1,236,059m (approx. US$ 925 million) for the year ending 2001. China International Re is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Insurance International Holdings. In 2001 the Hong Kong-based company recorded an increase of more than 35 percent in non-life non-proportional reinsurance premium income to HK$ 197,704,752 (approx. US$ 23.3 million). Proportional income also rose in excess of 15 percent to HK$ 613,973,194 (approx. US$ 78.7 million).
“News of the two reinsurers’ support follows a recent growth in inreon’s activities to cover Japan with Sompo Japan becoming the first company from the world’s second largest insurance market to join the platform. Training has now been completed with underwriters from Sompo Japan Re, the reinsurance arm of Sompo Japan and the company has already begun receiving its first risk submissions via inreon,” said the bulletin.
“The potential benefits of Internet-based reinsurance trading have been greeted with great enthusiasm in Asia,” commented Kaj Ahlmann, inreon’s Chairman and CEO. “Support for the inreon platform has been extremely encouraging in a number of key territories and the potential for further growth is exciting. The addition of Korean Re and China International Re to inreon’s panel of reinsurers will be welcomed by cedants and brokers in the region and should help provide a significant boost to online trading volumes.”
The company has increasing support for its platform from Asian companies. So far 22 insurers, brokers and reinsurers across the region have signed inreon membership agreements. “Worldwide there are now 24 reinsurers operating via inreon. In Europe another recent addition to the panel of companies supporting the platform has been Danish Re. The company will be writing online catastrophe excess of loss business,” said the announcement.
It added that “more than 55% of global capacity available from the world’s top 25 groups (as listed according to Standard & Poor’s rankings by net reinsurance premiums written) is represented on the inreon platform.”