Among its activities, the group has pushed into the area of serving HNW clients in recent years, for example, in Hong Kong and Singapore.

FWD Group, a pan-Asia insurance group operating in areas which include cover for HNW clients and other customer cohorts, has appointed three board members: Andrew Weir, Dominic Leung Ka Kui, and Laura Deal-Lacey.

Separately, Richard Sun Po Yuen has retired from the board. Following the changes which took effect from yesterday,

 there are now 13 directors, made up of two executive directors, two non-executive directors, and nine independent NEDs.

Until September last year, Weir was global asset management chair for KPMG, and a regional senior partner at that firm in Hong Kong. Leung, who has more than 40 years of Asian insurance industry executive and non-executive director experience, has served in senior roles at Ping An Group from 2004 to 2013, including chairman and chief executive of Ping An Life Insurance Company of China.

Since 2012, Laura Deal-Lacey has worked for the Milken Institute, the financial think tank, serving as executive vice president of Milken Institute International. Deal-Lacey has served on the board of FWD Singapore since 2016 and is currently its board chair.

“With these appointments, the board is increasingly diverse with deep business experience in Asia, which is critical to realising the company’s vision of changing the way people feel about insurance,” Professor Frederick Ma, chairman of the board, FWD Group, said.

In January this year, FWD Hong Kong signed a bancassurance partnership agreement with Bank SinoPac, widening FWD’s reach in high net worth and commercial markets. In August 2023, FWD – founded in 2013 – said it had entered the HNW insurance sector in Singapore. Insurance is an important channel for wealth management services in Asia, and significant in a region that traditionally has not had extensive state-provided healthcare cover.

Earlier this week, a report from Manulife Hong Kong and Deloitte said that insurance plays a big part in the way HNW individuals in Greater China guard their wealth and plan finances.