In the rapidly changing political situation, the world economy and the global reinsurance market, the pooling of efforts and cooperation between national reinsurers are key conditions for supporting local insurance markets in emerging economies, said president of Russian National Reinsurance Company (RNRC) Nikolay Galushin in his opening speech at the 1st Summit of National Reinsurers in Moscow, Russia in September.
It was in this spirit that participants at the two-day summit have announced their decision to form the National Reinsurers Network (NRN), a professional community which aims to develop direct business relations between national companies, increase the geographic scope and opportunities for reinsurance placements, obtain information on key changes in the national markets of NRN member countries, and exchange information on new products sold in the market, among others.
The summit was attended by key personnel from companies such as GIC Re (India), China Re (China), Vinare (Vietnam), Dunav Re (Serbia), Triglav Re (Slovenia), Europa Re (Switzerland), Bimeh Markazi (Iran), NITF (Sri Lanka) and BNPO (Belarus).
According to the RNRC, the idea of gathering national reinsurers came about during the implementation of the RNRC’s strategy of entrance to the international market and its establishing relations with foreign partners from 2017-18.
The RNRC was established by Russia’s central bank in August 2016 with the initial aim of offering reinsurance protection to Russian players following sanctions which prevented them from accessing reinsurance from the west.
However, it began operations in January 2017 with a hunger to access the international market beyond merely sanctioned players. Since then, it has obtained approvals to operate as a foreign reinsurer in India, China and Egypt and is keen to tap developing markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, former Soviet states and, potentially, Latin America.
In 2017, RNRC wrote reinsurance premiums amounting to RUB7.7bn ($117.3m), and its foreign business amounted to RUB205m. M
RUB1 = $0.02