The pricing environment in Australia and New Zealand continues to be positive but
QBE CEO Pat Regan has said rises could be more muted than expected.
Speaking after QBE announced that it could offload some of its underperforming units following a US$1.2 billion loss last week, Regan said that pricing remains positive but perhaps not as buoyant as first thought.
“What you could say is it is a better pricing environment than it was 12 months ago, whether it is quite as good as people expected in October then probably not - but it is a better pricing environment,” Regan said.
Regan noted that the firm sees the rate environment moving in three, global parts with Australia still tracking well compared with Europe and North America.
“The rate environment continues to have good momentum here in Australia so that carries a positive into 2018,” Regan said.
“The rate environment in Europe and North America has started to be moderately positive but whether you are QBE or anyone else you are waiting to see how that plays out during the year.”
As the firm prepares for its full year results at the end of February, Regan said that while it is focused on reviewing its business, growth is not out of the question.
“What I want to do is improve the underwriting performance of the business and improve our consistency of delivery,” Regan continued.
“When we went through that in ANZO we ended up being able to grow a little bit, which surprised me slightly, but that was a secondary outcome rather than a primary outcome which was to improve attritional loss ratio, the underwriting performance and our consistency.”
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