Ironshore CEO: Rate increases are sustainable

In an exclusive interview with Intelligent Insurer, Kevin Kelley, chief executive officer of speciality insurer Ironshore, has said that he is upbeat about rates in 2012.

While acknowledging that 2011 has been a tough year in terms of catastrophe losses, it has also been a year of rate increases on many lines, according to Kelley.

“On the insurance side, we have seen pretty strong rate increases on the property side in the 20 percent range, during the third and fourth quarters of 2011. We think that this will be sustainable through 2012,” he says. “We are also seeing rate increases for casualty in the 5-10 percent range.”

Kelley says rate declines are only limited to a small number of select lines now including directors’ & officers’ liability coverage and elements of the professional liability market.

“That is perplexing, given what is going on in the financial world,” he says.

In terms of new business, Kelley notes that the company already covers 13 business lines and he doesn’t see it moving into anything new.

“About a third of our business is in the property space and we see more opportunity there in 2012. We will grow that business,” he says.

“Although we shrunk that business in 2011, because we didn’t think that rates seemed proper, we will now look to regain some volume. However, we are going to be wary on the liability liabilities side, because although we are achieving rate increases of 5 to 10 percent, we think that they may need to be higher than that.”