The local insurance industry’s “halcyon period” since 2003 may be coming to an end, according to Aon Re Asia Pacific CEO Malcolm Steingold.

Speaking at the opening of the company’s biennial hazards conference in Sydney yesterday, he highlighted combined ratios of 89-95% achieved by the local industry. “The question is whether these results are sustainable.”

But he also acknowledged greater technical abilities and techniques, which seem to be keeping the global industry buoyant. He says the $US49 billion in catastrophe losses experienced by the global industry over the past year “do not appear to have dampened the reinsurance market’s spirit”.

“The apparent ease with which the market has absorbed these losses suggests a greater level of risk control assisted by the use of more sophisticated modelling techniques.”

The Aon conference has attracted delegates and speakers from Bermuda, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US.

Mr Steingold says the challenge for the industry is now “different and more difficult”.

“This challenge… is not survival but growth and how to become better at what we do. It is, after all, more challenging to create great companies than to repair damaged balance sheets.”