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Expansion of life and health reinsurance

Hannover, 24 January 2000:

Hannover Re has continued its strategically accelerated expansion of life and health reinsurance business by establishing two new branch offices in Malaysia and Hong Kong.

With effect from January 2000, the responsible authorities have granted full licences for life, health and personal accident reinsurance business. Hannover Re is in fact the very first international life and health reinsurer to be licensed in Malaysia. With the granting of these licenses to the branch offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Hannover Re has taken another significant step towards accomplishing its medium-term objective of becoming the third-largest life and health reinsurer in the world.

The Malaysian branch office which has been operating as a non-life reinsurer since 1995 under the management of Sathasivam Thava Rajah will be responsible for the ASEAN countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Hong Kong office, managed by David Laskey, will serve the growth markets of China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. The additional local presence in these two areas will not only enable Hannover Re to have closer contacts to its curent and future clients but also respond better to market requirements.

The aforementioned markets are expected to generate premium income in the order of EUR 50 million in the current financial year. By 2002, Hannover Re anticipates growth of 40 to 50%. In addition to traditional life and health reinsurance, the bulk of the business is attributable to financing arrangements and block assumption transactions (under which closed blocks of business are assumed en bloc).

Since 1 January 2000, the Hannover Re Group's life and health reinsurance business has been operating as an independent division "Hannover Life Re" under the management of Board Member Dr. Wolf Becke (cf. press release dated 20.10.99). Gross premium income in the order of EUR 2.5 billion is planned for Hannover Re's total life and health reinsurance business for the financial year 2000. Thus, this segment will generate more than 30% of the overall portfolio of the world's fifth-largest professional reinsurer.