There have been plenty of proclamations from Gulf financial centers about building insurance and reinsurance hubs. Most haven’t taken off. A well-heeled startup in Abu Dhabi plans to change that.
RIQ — founded in May with $1 billion in backing from International Holding Co. and partnerships with BlackRock and Abu Dhabi-based asset manager Lunate — aims to become a top-tier global reinsurer, drawing strength from being based in the UAE’s capital, its chief executive said in an interview.
“Insurance is one of the absolute cornerstones of capital markets. And most people don’t think about it in that context,” Mark Wilson said, pointing to Berkshire Hathaway as an example of how insurance provided the fuel for Warren Buffett’s historic investment run.
The Gulf, which has lagged other regions in developing a deep reinsurance market, is now positioned to close that gap, Wilson said. “If you are designing the ideal place for an insurance hub, what do you want? You want four things,” he said: stable long-term political leadership, proximity to capital, pragmatic regulation, and the ability to recruit talent.
Abu Dhabi now checks all four boxes, Wilson argued, saying it attracted him to the emirate after leading Aviva and AIA Group. The backing of IHC — controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother of the president — as well as growth-oriented regulators at ADGM, gives RIQ the setup it needs to scale quickly, he said.
RIQ is in the final stages of licensing and expects to ramp up next year with “a few billion dollars in capital,” Wilson said. The firm is pursuing a buy-and-build strategy focused initially on property and casualty insurance, acquiring and building businesses globally.
RIQ is not alone in spotting the Gulf’s potential in insurance. “The two longest forms of capital in the world are sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies,” Wilson said. “That seemed like a rather good match.”
Its partnerships with BlackRock and Lunate will shape the investment side of the balance sheet, while Swiss Re is supporting the liability side, particularly around underwriting expertise.
Artificial intelligence advances, Wilson said, give RIQ a chance to build a leaner company free of legacy systems that have left data siloed and difficult to use.
Beyond capital and technology, speed may be Abu Dhabi’s biggest advantage. “The ability of the regulator to get stuff done here… this place is going to fly,” Wilson said, pointing to the alignment between government, regulators, and investors. “That link is the flywheel.”
