U.K. insurance group Hiscox has launched a new U.S. underwriting division. Hiscox USA will write business for small and mid-sized U.S. firms outside the Fortune 1000. The new division is headed by Ed Donnelly and chaired by Robert Childs, chief underwriter of the Hiscox group and chief executive of Hiscox Bermuda. It has 15 staff.
Hiscox as a group already writes a lot of U.S. business – it makes up 40% of its book. This business is mostly written at Lloyd’s. But Hiscox wanted to establish the unit to get access to small-ticket U.S. business that would not usually make it as far as London or Lloyd’s.
“The extra presence is needed because not all brokers have the capability of bringing business to London,” says Bronek Masojada, chief executive of Hiscox. “If the business is too small it is not economical for them to bring it to London.”
Masojada says the company will start out writing professional indemnity because Donnelly’s expertise is in that line of business. Before joining Hiscox in July 2005, Donnelly was senior v.p. of U.S. underwriting agency Professional Indemnity Agency – a subsidiary of HCC Insurance Holdings. Within the next six months, the company will extend its product offering to include terrorism, technology, media and telecoms and fine art insurance.
Hiscox USA will write business U.S.-wide on both an admitted and non-admitted basis. But Masojada believes a lot of the unit’s activity will be focused in certain areas. “The business is in four or five major states and we will go where the business is,” he says. The states include Florida, Texas, New York, Connecticut and California.
Masojada says he expects the company to write $15m of premium in 2006. “It will grow from there,” he says. He declined to elaborate on the growth targets.
Hiscox USA has been in the pipeline since April last year, when the company revealed its intention to set up a U.S. office in 2006. The firm’s formation follows hot on the heels of the launch of Hiscox Bermuda.
The company has no further plans to branch out elsewhere yet. “We have got businesses in Europe, the U.K., the U.S., London, Lloyd’s and Bermuda,” says Masojada. “We are going to grow in the next five years within that footprint. We may set up additional offices in the U.S. or U.K. but we don’t anticipate further geographic expansion.”
