Marco Polo was perhaps the first entrepreneur to recognise the commercial opportunity that China offers the West. He certainly wasn’t the last. Businesses have been drawn to its huge market ever since and the insurance industry is no exception.

The US insurance market has long relied upon Lloyd’s and the European reinsurance market to provide Excess, Surplus and Reinsurance capacity; one need only to think of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to be reminded of the longevity of those relationships. But the markets are changing, and with China simultaneously becoming far more visible and active on the international economic stage, it is hardly surprising that attitudes and horizons are broadening.

China is on course to become the world’s largest insurance market: the Swiss Re Institute predicts that it will quadruple in 14 years to US$2.36 trillion, surpassing the US, currently the world’s leader. China’s share of the world’s insurance market is also expected to double from 11 per cent in 2018 to about 22 per cent in 15 years’ time.

The leading Chinese insurance companies are now amongst the largest in the world, with the technology and product sophistication to match. They are supporting Chinese investment overseas and are increasingly cross-border in their outlook.

China’s regulator, the CBIRC, is smoothing the way for Western insurers by removing caps on foreign ownership: by 2023, an insurance company will be able to enter the Chinese market without a local partner.

Despite the potential rewards, engaging with this vast and fast-growing market isn’t intuitive for Western companies. Beyond the obvious language barrier, China’s corporate culture emphasises different values from the West, like consensus-driven decision-making.

But that hasn’t stopped insurers from eagerly pursuing opportunities in China. For one, it’s a nation of over 1.4 billion people—the largest consumer market in the world today.

More broadly, China and the other Asian economies will shortly become larger than the rest of the world combined for the first time since the 19th century, according to the Financial Times. As the Asian century begins and global power shifts from West to East, global business is following.

The insurance industry may have originated in the West, but like many others, its future lies in the East. The opportunities afforded by China are self-evidently worth pursuing despite the challenges involved and the US market is waking up to that; US risks are increasingly being written by Chinese insurers, and US insurers are increasingly engaging in the PRC. To ignore China is too great a risk.