QBE Re managing director Nick Hankin said the company was increasingly focusing on building long-term, meaningful relationships with a handful of key partners rather than expanding broadly across markets, which could mean being selective about where it deploys capacity.
In an interview with Reinsurance News, Hankin discussed what he sees as the most attractive opportunities for QBE Re’s development, explaining that the company’s strategic focus is on building relationships that develop over time.
“We are making good progress in connecting with our core customer base and key customers around the world, which creates opportunities to grow with them across products and geographies over time,” he said.
Hankin emphasized that the success of these partnerships depends on consistency and predictability.
He explains: “We want to properly understand our clients – where their growth is, how their portfolios are evolving and how their reinsurance needs are changing – so that we can support them over the long term.
“Long-term partnerships only work if the client has a clear understanding of how you are likely to perform throughout the cycle. What we are seeing now is an increasing expectation for reinsurers to be consistently present across products over a number of years, rather than engaging more selectively. The aim is to build relationships that develop over time, rather than treating each renewal in isolation.”
In addition to long-term partnership opportunities, QBE Re continues to pursue sustainable growth in targeted areas.
“We have experienced substantial growth in our business in North America and continue to see additional opportunities there. We also see room for growth in Asia and in areas such as credit, structured reinsurance and specialty insurance,” Hankin said.
He also discussed how the company is growing in the casualty insurance space, noting that it’s an area where you have to be very careful about how you grow.
“Our role is to help clients achieve their ambitions, but this only works if we create long-term sustainable outcomes for both parties. For us, this starts with understanding the underlying business, being clear about the risks we take and how these fit into the wider portfolio,” explains Hankin.
He emphasized that while QBE Re hopes to grow, maintaining discipline remains at the core of the company’s strategy.
“We still want to grow, but only if the underlying economics are sound and consistent with our client strategies,” Hankin noted. “That means having a clear understanding of each deal – pricing, structure and underlying risks – and having confidence in its performance through the cycle.
“There are still a lot of opportunities in the market, but our focus is on identifying where the economy really makes sense for us. We don’t make short-term decisions based on where interest rates are at any given point.”
Hankin stressed that consistency and discipline will determine success, saying the real challenge with any strategy is whether it can be sustained as market conditions change, not just when conditions are favorable.
He said: “Reinsurers that perform well throughout the cycle tend to be those who have a clear understanding of their portfolio: their client mix, the products they want and how they deploy capital against those products.
“The reality is that even in strong years, parts of the portfolio will underperform. That’s inevitable. The question is whether the entire portfolio will deliver the right results over time. That’s why discipline across the portfolio is important as markets evolve.”
He added, “The mistake reinsurers can make is chasing short-term opportunities without fully understanding how those decisions impact the overall portfolio.”
Hankin also touched on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), saying its most immediate benefits are speed and efficiency.
He noted: “We are starting to use AI to process unstructured data and provide our teams with better management information (MI) and portfolio interaction tools.
“The bigger opportunity is in better insights and supporting decisions over time, but that depends on tying that to business objectives and getting the fundamentals right first.”
Additionally, Hankin noted that alternative capital is an important part of QBE Re’s management business.
He explained: “We need to be able to support clients in different market conditions, which means using a range of tools, including retrocession, sidecars and third-party capital, to manage our risk exposure and maintain capacity.
“The George Street Re casualty sidecar is a great example of this. It is a fully collateralized quota share arrangement that has received over $550 million of third-party capital from institutional investors to back a portion of our global casualty reinsurance portfolio.”
More broadly, the goal is to deliver capabilities in a way that benefits both the company and its customers in the long term, Hankin said.
Finally, Hankin emphasized that QBE Re values being consistent, reliable and relevant to its customers. Looking ahead, the company aims to continue growing, including doubling its reinsurance book to approximately $6 billion in total written premiums over the next five years.
“The ambition to build a $6 billion reinsurance business is important, but how we get there is equally important. Our aim is to build a business that is balanced, resilient and truly useful to the clients we work with over the long term,” he concluded.
