Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has added Shanghai to its global property and casualty (P&C) hub, which aims to enhance the company’s global placement model for clients. The hub initially focused on the coordination of placement activity across London, Bermuda and Singapore, but WTW explains that the addition of Shanghai enables the hub to facilitate increased sharing of ideas, expertise, innovation and perspectives across the Asia Pacific region. WTW reveals that the hub is set to expand into other countries as part of a second phase throughout 2021. Commenting on the expansion, Garret Gaughan, head of global markets P&C, WTW, says he is “delighted to be broadening the reach of our global P&C hub”. Gaughan explains: “The addition of Shanghai to the hub demonstrates WTW’s commitment to delivering innovative solutions and support to our clients through challenging times, including in the Asian region.” Wise Xu, head of corporate risk and broking, China and head of China at WTW, notes that the addition of Shanghai “reflects the strategic importance of the China insurance market, being the second largest insurance market globally next to the US”. He says: “Clients in China can now access global insurance capacity more efficiently through our Shanghai hub and benefit from our truly global marketplace strategy. At the same time, the dynamics of China’s emerging markets will also provide competitiveness and flexibility to our global clients.” Xu suggests that the new hub will help to introduce more innovative solutions to the Chinese insurance market to satisfy the risk transfer needs of clients in China.
