Africa Specialty Risks continues its expansion with new construction offering

Africa Specialty Risks (ASR), the Pan-African focused reinsurance group, has launched a new construction offering, with James Cronje named as head of construction underwriting.

ASR now underwrites a full spectrum of construction risk, including the power, mining, chemical processing industries and public and private building sectors and civil infrastructure.

Cronje joins ASR from AXA XL, where he was construction underwriting manager for the UK and Ireland for over two years. He has also served as underwriting manager at AXA ASR and as an engineering and construction underwriter at StarStone Insurance. In those roles he led the construction teams, writing risks on both Lloyd’s and non-Lloyd’s paper, which included risks across Africa.

Cronje said: “The opportunity to build a construction book from scratch is incredibly exciting, and I’m very much looking forward to working with the team at ASR to build a business which is dedicated to providing specialist risk solutions across Africa.”

Mikir Shah, chief executive officer (CEO) at ASR, added: “ASR continues to grow and expand its coverage across Africa, to provide the opportunity for businesses to invest across the continent.”

ASR was launched by Helios Investment Partners, in partnership with Shah, the former CEO of AXA Africa Specialty Risks, and Bryan Howett, former CEO of Old Mutual’s pan-African reinsurance operations.

In February ASR secured an additional multi-year binder capacity of up to $25 million per risk through a partnership with GIC of India and annual capacity from Peak Re. It also launched political violence and terrorism capacity in April 2021, a business that is led by Zouheb Azam.

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