QBE says its reinsurance business is well placed to join the world’s biggest players and the sector presents a growth opportunity following recent expansion.

Group CEO Andrew Horton says QBE Re – which has become a $US4 billion ($5.6 billion) business by premium – builds on the insurer’s regional footprint and adds diversification.

“It gives us access to a material profit pool within the wider industry and, importantly, we look to participate in ways that complement our insurance business,” he told a results briefing last week.

“We’ve focused on building better balance in the portfolio, striving for roughly even balance across property, specialty and casualty.”

Mr Horton says the portfolio is targeting $US6 billion ($8.5 billion) premium by 2030, which would put it “into the first division or the premiership of reinsurers”.

QBE is taking a multiline approach to build deeper relationships and become more important to cedents, he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

The global reinsurance sector has a wide range of participants, and the top is dominated by companies such as Swiss Re, Munich Re and Hannover Re.

“We’re not going to get to that point, but when we first looked at it, we thought we were sort of top of the second division of reinsurers. If you see those ones being top of the first division, our view was we wanted to get into the first division,” Mr Horton said.

QBE Portfolio Solutions is also expanding, and Mr Horton says a “joined up” approach to leveraging company expertise is reflected in a focus on strengthening distribution partnerships and in growth areas such as data centres.

He says Jamie Thompson has been appointed in London to liaise with brokers and customers about products and capacity required, while the company will take a considered approach as it seeks business.

“These are not risk-free entities. The scale that people are talking about in terms of quantity of them and size of them is something the industry may not have seen before, so we have got to be careful,” he said.

QBE half-year net profit rose to $US1.033 billion ($1.464 billion) from $US1.022 billion ($1.45 billion) on a statutory basis and was up an adjusted 4%. Gross written premium increased 6% on a constant currency basis to $US15.137 billion ($21.45 billion).