The development of Shanghai's international reinsurance center has received another significant boost from supportive policies. On July 7th, the National Financial Regulatory Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Government jointly issued the "Several Measures to Accelerate the Construction of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"). These measures aim to promote the high-quality development of China's reinsurance market across multiple fronts, including institutional layout and unified registration.
Compared to previous policies, the strategic importance of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center has been further emphasized in these new Measures, which also introduce several novel concepts. This provides substantial scope for subsequent supporting detailed rules and policy implementation, according to an industry insider.
From 'Existence' to 'Excellence'
During the 2026 Lujiazui Forum, NFRA head Ding Xiangqian had previously indicated that joint measures to accelerate the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center's development would be introduced. This policy has now been formally implemented as anticipated. The NFRA stated that establishing the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center is a major strategic deployment by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. The industry source noted that this further reinforces the center's strategic position.
The NFRA indicated that the construction of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center has made phased progress, becoming a crucial lever for building a modern reinsurance market system and an integral component of Shanghai's development as an international financial hub. The "Measures" primarily focus on accelerating the construction of the reinsurance market ecosystem, stimulating business activity, enhancing support for major projects, and strengthening risk prevention barriers, thereby addressing market concerns and sending positive signals.
The NFRA stated that the release of the "Measures" is conducive to deepening central-local coordination, pooling efforts, fostering a development momentum of successive implementation, and continuously refining the top-level design for the reinsurance center's construction. In fact, as a key part of Shanghai's international financial center development, the NFRA and the Shanghai Municipal Government have collaboratively issued multiple specialized support policies in recent years to provide a mechanism for the reinsurance center's development.
Among these, in 2024, they jointly released the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"). The reinsurance professional mentioned that, compared to the "Opinions," the new "Measures" represent a shift from focusing on the "existence" of functions like the reinsurance registration and trading center to emphasizing their "excellence."
The "Measures" comprise eight articles, covering areas such as guiding institutional layout, improving unified registration, accelerating platform development, increasing capacity supply, deepening reform and opening-up, expanding cross-border cooperation, strengthening regulatory effectiveness, and optimizing the development environment.
Regarding institutional layout, the "Measures" build upon the "Opinions'" support for institutional market access policies by further requiring optimization of the institutional layout to facilitate the smooth flow and efficient allocation of various factors in the Lingang New Area. They also encourage large enterprises to centrally manage their risk protection needs in Lingang, promoting precise matching between risk and underwriting capacity.
Concerning the improvement of unified registration, the "Measures" explicitly call for promoting domestic insurance institutions to conduct unified registration of reinsurance contracts and claims information at the reinsurance registration and trading center. It supports the center in further refining data standards, implementing data classification and tiered management, strengthening data governance and security confidentiality management, and deepening data application.
The industry source noted that the function of the reinsurance registration and trading center has been reinforced once more in this document, evolving from "promoting unified information registration" in 2024 to "improving unified registration" in the current "Measures." As a key innovation in building the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center, the reinsurance registration and trading center was officially launched in June 2023. The 2024 "Opinions" identified the focus as "building a Shanghai International Reinsurance Registration and Trading Center with concentrated elements, centralized business, active trading, and well-developed rules" to establish the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center.
NFRA data shows that as of the end of September 2025, 26 insurance institutions had gathered at the reinsurance registration and trading center, with 6 overseas institutions establishing trading seats covering countries and regions including the UK, Barbados, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Hong Kong China, and Taiwan China. Institutions with trading permissions reached 128, including 94 domestic and 34 overseas entities, covering 14 countries and regions globally, preliminarily forming a complete reinsurance industry chain. In 2025, the trading premium at the Shanghai International Reinsurance Registration and Trading Center exceeded 10 billion yuan, with registered premiums surpassing 150 billion yuan.
Furthermore, in terms of enhancing the supply capacity of insurance institutions, the "Measures" propose supporting reinsurance institutions in increasing capital, expanding equity, and issuing capital replenishment instruments; exploring ways to broaden channels for dispersing special risks like catastrophe risks; and supporting insurance institutions in opening dedicated accounts in the Lingang New Area to utilize relevant overseas investment facilitation policies.
Strengthening 'Internationalization'
Building the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center is a crucial deployment for strengthening global resource allocation functions and advancing high-level institutional opening-up. It also serves as a key support for serving the national "going global" strategy and overseas interests layout. Chang Ming, Assistant General Manager of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Registration and Trading Center, stated at a media research meeting organized by the Shanghai Insurance Association last October that China's reinsurance market holds immense development potential. Currently, China's reinsurance market ranks seventh globally, which does not match its direct insurance market size, the world's second largest. Simultaneously, the reinsurance penetration rate is 4.6%, below the global average of 12.5%.
The reinsurance professional believes that a major focus for strengthening the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center is to enhance the market's overall "internationalization" and strengthen its voice in the international reinsurance market. A significant emphasis of the new "Measures" is expanding cross-border cooperation to elevate international influence. The policy clearly states the need to leverage the Lingang New Area's advantages in cross-border domains to attract insurance institutions to expand into more incremental markets and improve cross-border inward reinsurance business management capabilities. It also calls for improving the international reinsurance consultation mechanism, creating a platform that pools global expertise and serves as a window for expanding opening-up, promptly showcasing the achievements of the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center's construction, and continuously enhancing its international influence.
In the view of the reinsurance expert, reinsurance transactions are characterized by their cross-border nature, complex contracts, and high degree of specialization. The construction of an international reinsurance center also requires corresponding support in terms of regulatory and judicial environments. In this regard, the "Measures" innovatively propose exploring the establishment of a reinsurance arbitration mechanism in the Lingang New Area. Concurrently, regarding the regulatory framework, a three-tier system comprising the "NFRA - local authorities - factor market" has been formed. It explicitly states the intention to strengthen the NFRA's regulatory effectiveness; supports the Shanghai Financial Regulatory Bureau in researching and establishing a monitoring system suited to reinsurance risks; and leverages the auxiliary regulatory functions of the reinsurance registration and trading center to improve the quality and efficiency of reinsurance regulation.
Comments