Full Capacity: Are we on a slow road to ‘stupid reinsurance’?

November 8 2025 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.  

IAN exclusive. We reported exclusively this week, Huntington Underwriting, in a management buyout, has acquired the underwriting businesses of Brown & Brown-owned Nexus Underwriting in Hong Kong and Labuan.  

Meanwhile, Nexus will realign its business in Asia, continuing to write A&H business from the region, but property and marine underwriting moving to Dubai. 

Deal updates. Japanese insurers continue their overseas buying streak, with Tokio Marine’s US arm acquiring Ignyte Insurance’s collector car business for US$615 million. 

The deal headlines a flurry of Pacific Rim activity: 

  • In Australia, broker Coverforce split three ways, with its broking, network, and strata portfolios going to separate firms. 

Cyber capacity. Gallagher Re has launched a new cyber reinsurance facility covering risks including cyber, tech E&O, and cyber property damage. 

The facility would allow flexible participation from reinsurers through fac, treaty and white-label structures, with an initial line size of at least US$15 million for fac placements and US$10 million for treaty and white-label deals. 

Nat cat brief. Typhoon Kalmaegi, which struck the Philippines and Vietnam this week, is expected to cause hundreds of millions of US dollars in economic losses. It is the deadliest disaster of 2025 so far, killing at least 142 and leaving 127 missing in the Philippines. The storm also destroyed 200,000 homes and crippled infrastructure across Cebu. 

Pockets of excitement and undercurrents of anxiety 

I’ve just emerged from a whirlwind week at the Singapore International Conference, and it was one for the books! With about 3,800 people in attendance, it was the biggest SIRC yet. 

The mood at the conference? Looks like the market is drifting back to the safety of the mundane rather than the down-to-the-wire events that it was only a couple of seasons ago.  

The reinsurance market, after all, prefers the “boring” to the chaotic. 

However, there is no doubt that in Asia Pacific, there are pockets of excitement and undercurrents of anxiety. 

There is palpable buzz about growth in key markets like Southeast Asia and India, clear opportunities thanks to raft of regulatory transitions happening and cautious optimism about consolidation in some of the major markets. 

A softening of rates is a given, and reinsurers will give in to cedents’ demands for relaxing some of the tighter terms and conditions.  

Underwriting will also relent on attachment points, despite apprehensions about frequency losses remaining high even in a largely benign nat cat environment. 

However, brokers seem to be in the driving seats for now as we are in a cycle where more capacity is chasing relatively flat demand. 

Reinsurers keep preaching underwriting discipline, but the lure of growth is hard to resist. It’s not different. It’s the same old story. Something about reinsurers and short memories… 

Enter the opportunistic underwriters, ready to roll the dice, and it won’t be too long before the chickens come to roost. 

Or as one industry player told me, we could be steering right back into the “slaughterhouse of stupid reinsurance!” 

People moves

Megan Shao is returning to Zurich as chief claims officer for Asia Pacific.  

Gallagher Re’s Vinod Krishnan is leaving for India’s Edme Insurance.  

The Hartford has bolstered its Singapore hub with Chiaw Lean and Qingyang Liu. 

To keep up with the latest people moves in the region, don’t forget to check out our weekly people move round-up. 

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