The former CEO and active underwriter of Verto Syndicate 2689, Peter Mills, is in the process of securing backing for a new treaty reinsurance-focused MGA, The Insurance Insider can reveal.
Mills and his former colleague Tim Griffiths have been drumming up support for the new platform, called Pyrrhic Re, in recent months, and the pair were at the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous last week meeting potential backers and clients.
Pyrrhic Re will write property, casualty and specialty treaty reinsurance, with Mills, who serves as the MGA’s CEO, and Griffiths, the platform’s CUO, hopeful of having A+ rated capacity in place for a 1 November launch. That would allow them to begin writing business at the 1 January renewals.
The London-based MGA will be supported by a Pyrrhic Re ILS platform based in Guernsey. This ILS platform will offer investors access to Pyrrhic Re’s portfolio in the form of a quota share reinsurance.
Mills and Griffiths are confident Pyrrhic Re will be a sustainable reinsurance business that produces returns higher on average than those of its peers by maintaining a low expense ratio.
“If you want to invest in an existing reinsurance business, those companies have legacy IT systems and multiple offices and regulators,” Mills explained to The Insurance Insider.
“That’s all very expensive, but we are starting this business from scratch and with a single location so we don’t have that legacy and the associated costs,” he added.
Those behind Pyrrhic Re are targeting a business mix of 60/40 mix of proportional to non-proportional reinsurance. The intention is not necessarily for the new platform to lead programmes, although in some instances Pyrrhic Re may do so, but rather to supply significant following capacity.
Once Pyrrhic Re is launched, Mills and Griffiths will draw on their extensive market network to work with a list of around 100 potential clients, all based in developed and mature insurance markets.
Mills left Verto in May this year. Before joining Verto back in 2017, Mills worked for Endurance as head of Emea P&C and global specialty reinsurance, among other roles. His career has also included stints with Tokio Millennium Re, Cologne Re, XL Capital, Gerling and Crum & Forster.
He had served as the syndicate’s founding active underwriter. His departure came after Hampden-backed Verto put the bulk of its circa £100mn ($125mn) of capacity behind Beat Syndicate 4242’s Chord Re for the 2020 year of account.
Griffiths worked alongside Mills at both Endurance and at Verto, where he was deputy active underwriter.