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MONTE CARLO--The international markets present a number of opportunities for an industry that is rich in capital and looking for growth, a Guy Carpenter executive said here.

"Carriers are increasingly looking for new ways to develop and deploy their capital to optimize their returns, especially given how much excess capital is said to be held," noted Henry Keeling, president and chief executive officer of Guy Carpenter's International Operations, during a press conference at the annual Reinsurance Rendez-Vous in Monte Carlo.

"We firmly believe that the future market leaders will be those who find new ways to grow, despite economic volatility, to create new opportunities through innovation or investment in new markets," he said.

When looking across the international marketplace, Mr. Keeling observed, there are opportunities for growth in many areas. He cited opportunities in Europe, adding that the Asian markets also are "burgeoning. Not just in the traditional property and casualty segment, but also in more specialty areas."

Emerging risks in new regions provide significant opportunity, he said. "Moves into these areas will certainly separate the leaders from the followers. Some opportunities could even redefine the industry well into the future."

For example, he explained, micro insurance is "one of the top contenders for that."

The world's low-income population is estimated at four billion people, Mr. Keeling said, "most of whom lack access to crucial financial services, including insurance."

Providing micro insurance, he noted, provides an opportunity "to create social good, while also presenting the industry with a commercial opportunity of unprecedented size and scope."

For insurers and reinsurers, he said, "this is a robust market, currently estimated at $1 billion in premium with a potential ultimate market size of $5 trillion."

He added that Guy Carpenter is already committed to this sector, noting that in 2008 the company was awarded an innovation grant from the Micro Insurance Innovation Facility to develop risk transfer capacity for micro insurance risks throughout the developing world.

Since that time, he said, Guy Carpenter has worked "tirelessly" with micro finance institutions, insurers and reinsurers worldwide to "narrow the gap between micro insurance micro supply and demand, and also to narrow the knowledge gap that exists in this area."

Already, he said, Guy Carpenter has completed its first commercial micro reinsurance transaction. "This is real," he said. "Business is being done and there are pipelines out there."

This particular deal, he observed, helped to secure much needed capacity for five Indian insurers and support their respective shares of a state-sponsored critical illness program, which covers 13 million low-income families in Southern India.

Keeling pointed out that Guy Carpenter's success in developing and supporting such programs relies on broad work being done to build and enable infrastructure within the commercial reinsurance marketplace. That infrastructure, he added, will readily support the secondary transfer of micro insurance risks and the associated expansion and improvement of multiline micro insurance products.

"So whether it's emerging markets, new risks or micro insurance," he concluded, "it's clear that growth only comes from putting capital to work. In today's market, carriers that find new ways to optimize their capital and new places to invest it will not only find ways to gain market share in today's rate climate, they will also create a foundation for future market leadership."

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