Lloyd’s Asia has joined the Global Asia Insurance Partnership (GAIP) as a supporting partner, bringing the Lloyd’s market’s largest underwriting centre outside London into regional work on protection gaps, product suitability and distribution, in a region where insurance covered only 8% of natural catastrophe economic losses last year.
GAIP, a platform of insurers, regulators and academics established in Singapore in 2021, announced the move on October 8. Lloyd’s Asia will join relevant working groups, industry dialogues and workshops and engage with GAIP’s research, frameworks and tools, adding underwriting and market perspectives alongside regulatory and academic input. It will work with insurers, regulators, policymakers and academics to examine barriers to protection, including gaps in risk understanding, product suitability and distribution. The announcement does not set out specific deliverables or a timeline.
Swiss Re Institute data show natural catastrophes caused about US$65 billion of economic losses across Asia in 2025, around 30% of the global total, but insured losses were only US$5.2 billion, the lowest since 2017. Insurance covered 8% of the region’s economic losses, against a previous 10-year average of 17%. Cover was thinner in emerging Asia, at about 5% historically, than in advanced markets, at about 22%, and floods caused more than half of the economic losses, about US$31 billion.
Based in Singapore, Lloyd’s Asia is the Lloyd’s market’s largest underwriting center outside London, with more than 200 underwriters from 15 syndicates. Its regional platform provides local underwriting authority across 47 classes of business, including property, marine, energy, cargo, trade credit, and political risk and terrorism.
The platform includes 16 service companies, whose underwriters can deal directly with clients or work through brokers and coverholders. There is no requirement to use a Lloyd’s broker, so regional brokers can transact with them without Lloyd’s accreditation. That access matters for GAIP’s agenda on how products reach clients.
GAIP chief executive Min Hung Cheng said strengthening resilience across Asia requires perspectives from across the insurance ecosystem, and that GAIP aims to advance practical, evidence-based approaches to complex risks and protection gaps. Emma Loynes, chief executive of Lloyd’s Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said solutions must reflect the region’s diverse markets and that working with GAIP will deepen the market’s understanding of those challenges.
GAIP’s August research on parametric insurance found that many initiatives across Asia struggle to progress beyond pilot programs despite generally favorable regulatory conditions. It identified uncertain demand, trusted distribution, reliable data and the ability to sustain coverage through renewal cycles among the main obstacles. The study focuses on parametric cover, but several of those barriers match the ones the Lloyd’s partnership is meant to address.
Lloyd’s Asia’s participation follows Cathay Life, Taiwan’s largest life insurer, joining GAIP as a principal partner on September 10.
