(March 25): HSBC Holdings Plc’s insurance chief said the company is seeing an “explosion” in demand for estate planning and wealth transfer solutions as clients seek to de-risk from global uncertainty.
The insurance arm also manages US$120 billion ($153.6 billion) of investments for its clients, which face a challenging environment where valuations are stretched and as sectors are targeted by the AI revolution, Edward Moncreiffe said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
“You’ve got market volatility, geopolitical uncertainty marrying with these long-term demographic structural tailwinds,” he said. “There’s a lot of risk, we are in the risk business, and risk is a double-edged sword for us.”
Moncreiffe added that private credit makes up less than 5% of its total investments through more than 1,600 loans.
The insurer’s annualised premiums rose 30% to US$6.5 billion last year, he said, and HSBC research showed insurance has surpassed wills as the preferred mechanism for managing estate planning. “The key trigger for legacy planning is macroeconomic and market volatility.”
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