QBE Re keeps growth ambitions ‘in control’ as market softens – Hankin

Reinsurer QBE Re is targeting around $6bn of premium by 2030 as it pushes towards a top 15 global reinsurance position but managing director Nick Hankin stresses that its growth trajectory will remain subject to market conditions as pricing softens.

Hankin, who took charge of QBE Re at the beginning of 2026, says his initial focus has been on executing an established strategy rather than making wholesale changes.

“QBE has been growing significantly for the last few years. It’s gone from being outside the top 30 property and casualty reinsurers to ending 2025 in the top 20,” he says.

“We’ve got a client strategy, we’ve got a product strategy, we’ve got a growth strategy, to take the business to around $6bn by 2030, which would make us top 15.”

Having previously served as chief underwriting officer for QBE International, Hankin had already worked closely on the reinsurance strategy, including global products across property, casualty and specialty, regional profit centres and investment in portfolio analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Scale, Hankin suggests, is increasingly important to becoming relevant to large global cedants.

“Certainly, five years ago, we weren’t at the table. We weren’t someone they would consider other than on the more opportunistic placements. We’ve now reached that position with a number of those global clients.”

His first months in charge have centred on building relationships with clients, brokers, retrocession partners and sidecar investors, with an emphasis on continuity of strategy.

“We’ve got a lot of internal support within QBE, and what I’ve uncovered in the six months is we’ve also got a lot of external support with our clients and brokers for the way the business has been set up,” he says.

Reinsurance remains “very much a people business and a relationship business”, he emphasises, where buyers need confidence that counterparties can deliver complex programmes with certainty. “It’s not a mechanistic trade,” Hankin says. “It’s something that relies on high trust in the counterparty.”

SCALE, DIVERSIFICATION

QBE Re has broadened its product and geographic footprint, including credit, mortgage and structured reinsurance, and opened in Singapore this year.

Hankin says growth opportunities span clients, products and territories, including markets where QBE Re has historically been underweight, such as the US.

“We’re building a more diverse portfolio, and a diverse product portfolio, which means that at any time we’re seeing different products at different stages of the cycle,” he says.

“We have grown significantly over the last three, four, five years. We’re still growing, but we’re in control of that growth trajectory. It’s not to grow at all costs or double at a certain point. It’s around how we set the right growth trajectory within the market conditions that we’re trading in at any particular time.”

Hankin says QBE Re remains comfortable with overall pricing adequacy in 2026 and still sees good underwriting conditions for growth, although European property is one area where it sees less adequacy.

However, he is clear that the reinsurer will not simply follow the market as competition increases.

“We certainly wouldn’t look to just track or follow the market,” he says. “We’re keen to keep the underwriting discipline around attachment points, particularly some of the design areas.”

Property pricing will partly depend on loss activity after a relatively benign catastrophe period, strong underwriting results and substantial capital inflows, he suggests. QBE Re intends to navigate the cycle partly by concentrating capacity on global and key clients.

Hankin says between 25% and one-third of the portfolio has sat within a more “tradable” segment that can be adjusted according to economics – “so a reasonable amount that you can use as a lever to manage through the cycle,” he says.

“It provides the wiggle room. You’ve got the client strategy, as an important lever through the cycle, and then the other part is where you set your growth ambitions for the business.”

If market conditions change significantly in 2027 or 2028, Hankin says QBE Re would adjust its growth trajectory accordingly.

WHERE GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES LIE

Geographic expansion remains another component of the strategy. Hankin says QBE Re remains committed to the Middle East, where it has teams spanning insurance and reinsurance in Dubai, and continues to see opportunities in both the Middle East and Africa.

The Singapore opening complements QBE’s longstanding insurance presence in Asia, he observes, while relationships with Japanese insurers have also provided growth.

He says: “QBE being able to have that kind of global footprint and global product range has helped grow those partnerships with the Japanese insurers as they expand overseas.”

Structured reinsurance is another targeted growth area. QBE Re has established a separate underwriting cell for the business, which Hankin describes as involving bespoke arrangements that can include multi-year, multi-product structures, whole-account quota shares and features such as loss-ratio caps.

“For the client, they’re useful from a capital perspective, from a volatility perspective, particularly if they’re multi-year, providing some downside protection,” he says.

Structured re currently accounts for around 5% of QBE Re’s turnover, Hankin says, leaving potential for further growth over the next two to three years.

Looking towards the 1 January renewals, he expects property to be challenging on price across multiple regions if the second half remains free of material loss activity, with pressure potentially extending into programme design.

He also highlights North American accident and health, where QBE Re believes significant pricing increases are required over the next 12–24 months, and North American casualty, where rate adequacy relative to risks such as social inflation will remain a focus.

QBE Re can reduce participation in the tradable portion of its portfolio where economics or structures no longer make sense, he emphasises, although the group does not want to make wholesale changes to its appetite through the cycle.

“The philosophy is consistency around underwriting appetite and approach through a cycle,” he says. By the end of 2027, Hankin wants to have strengthened the team further, deployed common underwriting technology and AI tools more widely, and maintained strong advocacy from global and key clients. “I’m taking a strong team and a business and making them stronger,” he adds.

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