Brookfield Corp.

plans to build its property and casualty insurance business as it looks to exploit a corner of the insurance industry in which the firm has a competitive edge and hasn’t been crowded by other

private equity

players.

The firm is seeking “a relatively low-risk” area of property and casualty insurance “where we can become globally dominant and create float to invest into our strategies,” particularly its higher-earning equity strategies, chief executive Bruce Flatt said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference.

Brookfield is focused on areas “where we have something special,” including underwriting insurance for real estate construction and warehouses, he said.

While annuities remain Brookfield’s largest business within insurance, the firm wants to grow the property and casualty insurance business, which currently makes up a small portion of its book.

P&C accounted for just US$3.5 billion of equity as of the second quarter, but Brookfield aims to grow that to US$30 billion to US$50 billion in the long run by writing policies for

real estate

construction, industrial warehouses and renewable power facilities.

The Canadian firm has been aggressively expanding its insurance and wealth business, snapping up companies in the U.S., pushing into the U.K. market and, more recently, expanding into Japan’s reinsurance market.

Flatt also said Tuesday that he expects asset sales to accelerate in the U.S. as

interest rates

drop.

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“You’re going to see a lot of more monetizations in the United States and that’s good for us — but it’s also good for the industry in general,” said Flatt, who’s also the chief executive of New York-based

Brookfield Asset Management.

Bloomberg.com