Labuan-based Mandarin Re has raised its paid-up capital to US$26 million, its second capital increase of 2026. The move supports a gross written premium target of US$70 million for the year by backing cedants in markets where larger reinsurers have been pulling back.
The timing is deliberate. Larger reinsurers have concentrated their deployment in core geographies as pricing softened. Many have exited secondary markets, not on a risk-by-risk basis, but by region.
The result is a growing access gap for cedants in parts of the world that sit outside the priority lists of the market's largest players. Global reinsurance capital entered 2026 at approximately US$540 billion in traditional dedicated capacity and US$120 billion in insurance-linked securities, according to ratings agency AM Best. That capital is abundant but unevenly distributed.
Mikhail Grishin, Mandarin Re's board member and chief operating officer, put the problem bluntly. "Some reinsurers have chosen to slash their exposure in certain countries and even whole regions without considering each risk," he said. "That leaves many superb cedants without access to sufficient quality capital. We are eager to provide long-term support by filling those voids."
The gap is not theoretical. Aon's 2026 Climate and Catastrophe Insight estimated US$76 billion in economic losses across Asia-Pacific in 2025. Only around US$7 billion of that was insured. Our coverage of how the Labuan reinsurance sector absorbed a heavy regional catastrophe load in that period found that underwriting margins tightened as reinsurers absorbed volatility that primary markets ceded upward.
Mandarin Re, licensed in Labuan in 2015, operates across four regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, and Africa and Europe. It reaches more than 150 countries through brokers, cedants, and strategic partners. Property risks account for approximately 70% of its book.
The remainder covers engineering, marine, energy, aviation, liability, surety, and political risk, written on both a treaty and facultative basis. Its worldwide scope excludes the US and Canada.
The US$26 million in paid-up capital is designed to underpin a US$70 million GWP target for 2026. Chief executive Redzal bin Mohamad said the company is following "a carefully mapped plan," adding that it has hired new underwriters and moved into new territories and products. The capital raise, he said, "underpins our growth."
The company has also been extending its distribution reach. In March, a Miami-based specialty platform won a binding authority from Mandarin Re to underwrite facultative property risks, treaty reinsurance, and industry loss warranty structures on its behalf. Grishin described the arrangement as a way to get closer to risk in Latin America and beyond.
Alongside the capital increase, Mandarin Re has appointed Patrick G. W. Ward to its board of directors. Ward has more than 35 years of insurance leadership experience, most recently as group president and chief executive of Bahamas First Insurance Group.
He serves his second term as chairman and president of the Insurance Association of the Caribbean and is a non-executive director of Summit Insurance Company.
Ward said he looks forward to "reinforcing the governance guardrails as the company grows around the world." Grishin framed the appointment in the same terms. "Governance is a critical differentiator for Mandarin Re," he said, adding that the company has assembled a board of experienced directors to support its growth as it expands its global footprint.
For reinsurance professionals placing business in the markets Mandarin Re targets, the capital raise and board appointment signal a specialist building institutional foundations to compete for business the global market has chosen not to chase. That is the bet Mandarin Re is making.
