John Mullally, Associate Director - Financial Services, Robert Walters Hong Kong

The insurance sector has proven to be one of the few growth areas within the broader financial services industry over the past five years. This will continue to be the case as we head into 2014. International insurance firms continue to grow their businesses in Asia and many of these companies have their regional hubs in Hong Kong.

As growth opportunities diminish for these businesses in their home markets of Europe and North America, they have continued to invest premiums they have earned over the past 30 years into the faster-growth markets of Asia.

While mainland China continues to prevent significant challenges to these firms and their joint venture partners on the mainland, the market is slowly opening up as the regulatory authorities ease restrictions on foreign-owned insurers operating in the country.