Australian insurers are keen to expand further into Asia, although the “how” element is presenting challenges.

Glenn Sedgwick, Accenture’s MD for Asia Pacific Insurance, says meetings with the strategy heads of major insurance companies in the past fortnight have shown Australian insurers “get” the idea of offshore expansion.

“They realise the Australian market is a tough place to be,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“Market shares are pretty much locked, particularly in personal lines. The market is not growing that much, so organic growth is hard to see as a path to success.”

Mr Sedgwick was among the authors of a global study by Accenture this year that found 75% of insurance companies see the world financial downturn offering more opportunities to grow outside their home market in the next three years.

He expects insurers expanding offshore will need to outsource things like IT, finance operations and enterprise capabilities in order to stay focused on product, joint venture partnerships, market and brand position.

IAG, which is working on a joint venture with the State Bank of India, does not have many growth options apart from expanding into Asia, Mr Sedgwick says.

QBE’s continuing to expand into Europe and the US, but has operations in Asia and could shift its focus closer to home.

“On the life side, bank-owned MLC and CommInsure, while they take second place in terms of importance in the whole group, could conceivably follow the banks offshore,” Mr Sedgwick said.

“Bancassurance and the ability to deliver up a full service offering is actually pretty important to banks in Asia.”

He says Axa, already entrenched in Asia from the National Mutual days, is “pretty much there” but the question is which future they believe in – Australasian or Asian – and what is the balance.