Full Capacity: EAIC reads the room on rates, risk and resilience

September 19 2026 by

Welcome to Full Capacity, a weekly briefing on all the most important developments of the past week with a personal take on the news from our editor-in-chief, Mithun Varkey, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.    

Plan ahead. Hong Kong has rolled out a series of insurance-related initiatives, including promoting ILS, developing commodity solutions, and broadening marine insurance offerings to reinforce its status as an international risk management hub.

In his annual policy address and inaugural five-year plan delivered on Wednesday, chief executive John Lee announced that the city will also examine legislative amendments to introduce a protected cell company (PCC) structure.

Expanding base. Miller has expanded its Asia footprint with entry into Malaysia. Under a Labuan licence, the broker will focus on treaty and facultative reinsurance, with plans to broaden its product capabilities.

Paying the price. A former China Construction Bank (Asia) (CCB) employee has been sentenced to four years in prison by a Hong Kong court after admitting he took US$470,000 in bribes from a Vesttoo employee to authenticate forged letters of credit and collateral documents used to back insurance-linked investment transactions.

Mounting costs. Insurers in Japan have paid US$152.2 million in residential earthquake insurance claims from the Kumamoto earthquake in July. Of 110,809 claims accepted, insurers have completed 36,514 investigations and made 30,838 payments, as of August 28, GIAJ data showed. Meanwhile, claims from the torrential rain in Japan’s Chiba prefecture in August climbed to US$225 million.

Sign off. Ageas has completed the sale of its 30.95% stake in Malaysia’s Etiqa Insurance to its joint venture partner Maybank. Meanwhile, Ageas’ Malaysia and Singapore country manager Dimitri Terryn confirmed the transaction marked the end of his time in Malaysia. He will return to Belgium to join the management team of Ageas Re as chief risk officer.

Closing time. Zurich’s US$11 billion cash acquisition of Beazley is expected to take effect on October 1 after all regulatory approvals were secured. The deal remains subject to the satisfaction of certain other conditions, including court approval at a hearing scheduled for September 22.

Soft market, hard truths 

Earlier this week, the region’s insurance industry gathered in Tokyo for the 31st East Asian Insurance Congress.

EAIC has long been the region’s “other” conference fixture – bi-annual, rotating among East Asian capitals, and deliberately inclusive of life insurers, primary P&C carriers, brokers and reinsurers.

Unlike the Singapore International Reinsurance Conference (SIRC), which skews heavily to reinsurers and reinsurance brokers in a high-gloss, Monte Carlo–adjacent setting, EAIC pulls in domestic insurers from across Asia’s heterogeneous markets.

The three-day event was a tamer affair – slower, quieter, and without the usual buzz and bustle that typifies industry conferences. While it could have benefited from a sharper focus and clearer purpose,it still succeeded in convening key voices on the region’s most pressing insurance issues.

On the P&C side, the dominant theme was familiar but uncomfortable: rates are softening, competition is intensifying, and many carriers are expected to push harder into Q4 to hit underwriting targets.

That’s not new, but the consistency of the message across coffee-break conversations – more than from the panels – suggests the market is already bracing for a tougher 2027.

At the same time, the conference kept returning to Asia’s structural challenge: how to close the protection gap for earthquakes, floods and excessive rainfall without over-relying on public balance sheets or leaving households and SMEs exposed.

Multiple panels focused on public–private partnership models to address the region’s protection challenges, with explicit references to European-style natural disaster funds as potential templates for Asia.

Major Japanese non-life groups were conspicuous by their lack of strength at an event in their own backyard.

In some ways, that’s telling. The “big three” are looking for opportunities in more sophisticated markets – Australia, North America, Europe and Bermuda – and Asian expansion is no longer the priority it once was.

EAIC may not quite match SIRC’s star power, but its grounded, inclusive format is still a barometer for what Asia’s insurers are actually thinking and where the region’s real challenges lie.

People moves

Envest Group has tapped former Marsh chief Toni Ferrier as chief executive officer of its New Zealand broking unit.

Labuan Re has appointed Chan Swee Chee as CUO.

Starr has named Sharon Ho as head of A&H for Hong Kong.

Do check out our weekly people move round-up to stay up to speed on the most important appointments in the region. 

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