Lancashire

The executive will take up the role of global head of marine at AIG.

Swiss Re goes against the tide in expanding in cat, while specialty rates appear to be holding up better than expected.

Plus this week’s Q1 results and all the top news of the week.

CEO Alex Maloney acknowledged the company has exposure to losses in Russia, “although they have not yet materialised”.

Growth was driven by the P&C reinsurance segment, which increased GWP by 39.1% to $310.1mn.

In the event of a $2bn aviation-industry loss, Lancashire would face a $40mn loss on its aviation book, as well as a $10mn loss on other lines due to the Ukraine conflict, analysts said.

Lancashire has direct exposure to Ukraine through aviation, marine and political risk lines, according to a Jefferies report that said the carrier will likely incur “immaterial losses” from the conflict in its aviation war business.

The withdrawal of the major lead market will substantially reduce available capacity at 1 April renewals.

The CEO said, in very heavy cat years, “if you write a substantial amount of cat business as we do, there's going to be an inherent volatility to your business, which we accept”.

Despite heavy cat losses, its combined ratio improved by 0.5 pts, due to an improved expense ratio of 17.2%, compared with 24% in 2021.

Over the last 12 months, three of the four London-listed companies have drastically underperformed their US-listed and Continental European peers.

The new Sydney-based platform will initially focus on direct and facultative (D&F) commercial property in the Australian and New Zealand markets.