Full Capacity: Microsoft’s contagious outage

November 14 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.    

Double down. Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance has agreed to acquire the remaining 60% stake in Canopius, alongside KKR and Korea Investment Corporation, in a US$2.5 billion deal that values the Lloyd’s carrier at over US$4 billion.  

Samsung has a call option to buy KKR’s shares after six years and KIC’s after three years, while KKR and KIC hold a put option to sell all their shares to Samsung after six years. 

Major wager. Aon and Blackstone have launched Cortina (Syndicate 1956), a lead/follow Lloyd’s syndicate managed by QBE.  

Described as a “first-of-its-kind” reinsurance capacity model, Cortina will write 3% of eligible property cat XoL treaties and 5% of all other eligible Aon-arranged treaties. 

M&A spotlight. Kyobo Life Insurance is in talks with Axa Group to acquire a 51% stake in Axa General Insurance Korea for about US$75 million. The proposed JV would restore Kyobo’s control of the insurer nearly 20 years after it sold the business. 

Captive focus. Hong Kong’s captive momentum is picking up, with the total number domiciled in the city set to “get to double digits very soon”, Clement Cheung, CEO of the Hong Kong Insurance Authority, told InsuranceAsia News. 

Concentration risk 

Microsoft’s outage on Friday, which left users unable to access Outlook, Teams and other services, was not a cyberattack, but it exposed a vulnerability that matters just as much: the world’s dependence on a handful of digital infrastructure providers.  

When one of them stumbles, the disruption can ripple through businesses, governments, hospitals and schools.  

The outage dragged on for several hours, with Microsoft saying in an X post that the changes it applied to improve serviceability did not act as expected and that it was “identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances”. 

The insurance industry is bracing for what could potentially be a disastrous loss event.  

The event, reminiscent of the CrowdStrike outage in 2024, seems to have come from a system failure rather than a cyberattack.  

And as a cyber broker told InsuranceAsia News, the event is likely to be declared a non-malicious technical failure. 

However, claims will likely be filed under cyber policies, which generally cover system failures.  

But not every policy includes contingent business interruption cover, and not every third-party technical failure or software glitch is automatically covered. 

Even in cases where there is cover, the impact will hinge on the “waiting period”, typically eight to 12 hours, during which the event remains uncovered.  

With the disruptions remaining unsolved, it is highly likely that risk managers are taking a closer look at their policies. 

The hope for the industry is that this outage, like the CrowdStrike event, proves to be a warning rather than a major loss event.  

However, the incident illustrates the growing interconnectedness of risks and their global impact.  

The risk is not just that a single company fails, but that its failure becomes a systemic event.  

The high concentration of critical digital infrastructure in a few providers means that a localised technical glitch can quickly snowball into a global business continuity issue, affecting everything from financial reporting to government administration and international trade. 

People moves

QBE Insurance has appointed Nigel Hawtin as chief transformation and operations officer.  

Marsh Asia’s head of marine, cargo, and logistics Michael Walls has been promoted to global head of the business. 

Swiss Re has named Pierre-Albert Bouard as its new head of life and health reinsurance for Southeast Asia. 

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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