Regional Review: Belfast

For a community that has been forced to overcome more than its fair share of troubles in the last century, members of Belfast’s general insurance market may be forgiven for being cautious with their optimism regarding the future prosperity of the sector in Northern Ireland. A country of just 1.8 million people – and with a disproportionally large public sector – Northern Ireland has long struggled to spark private sector growth, which has been stunted by a combination of a reduction in its traditional heavy industry and a past reluctance among international organisations to invest in a region that has suffered greatly at the hands of sectarian conflict.

Despite significant improvements in the political climate in Belfast since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, many local brokers continue to paint a gloomy picture of an over-broked market that has long