Insurance giant QBE is "well advanced" on plans to establish a new European headquarters outside of London after the UK government began the formal process of leaving the European Union.
QBE chairman Marty Becker says the Australian firm, whose European business is based in central London and contributes about a third of the group's revenue, expects to have concluded negotiations for a new location ahead of 2018 renewals.
"We need to prepare our business for this reality, and we are doing so on the assumption the existing access arrangements enjoyed by UK-domiciled insurers to the other 27 European Union countries will not be preserved," Mr Becker will tell QBE's annual general meeting in Sydney on Wednesday.
QBE had 14,226 staff around the world at December-end, 1,943 of them with its European operations.
Mr Becker said QBE, which in February launched a $1 billion share buyback after lifting its full-year profit 23 per cent to $A1.1 billion, was cautiously optimistic about trading conditions for the rest of the financial year.
"We expect pricing in 2017 to be more stable, with the near-term pricing outlook broadly flat in most territories other than Australia, where insurance market pricing started to improve in mid-2016 following a period of unsustainable price declines coupled with claims inflation," Mr Becker said.
Mr Becker said global conditions are also expected to be more favourable with regard to investment returns as central bankers indicate a decade-long period of historically low interest rates and fiscal stimulus is drawing to a close.
Nonetheless, he said the increased anti-globalisation sentiment that contributed to UK voters choosing to leave the European Union would be closely monitored.
