Vantage ramps up expansion with slew of industry hires

Vantage Risk, the re/insurance business that began writing business at the start of 2021 under the leadership of former AXA XL chief executive Greg Hendrick, has launched a range of financial lines and professional liability products.

The Bermuda carrier has since expanded its offering to include select insurance products. In the US, Vantage launched a US surplus lines carrier, Vantage Risk Specialty Insurance Company, enabling certain US risks to be written on AM Best rated paper.

“We are very pleased with the quality of the insurance businesses launched in the second and third quarters of 2021,” said Hendrick. "I am excited to highlight some of the insurance leaders at Vantage who lend a great depth of experience, long-standing industry relationships and bold commitment to Vantage’s ambition to build a specialty re/insurance business that sees risk differently.”

The company’s financial and professional lines business in Bermuda is led by Leona Lik (pictured), who joined Vantage in April 2021 from Aon. Lik has recruited an experienced underwriting team to grow the Bermuda book of financial and professional lines business, focusing on writing all industry classes across management liability, financial institutions and professional services.

In the US, where the reinsurer’s holding company has also launched a US surplus lines carrier, Bhuma Patel joined to head the financial institutions business. Patel assembled a team of financial lines underwriting leaders, including Cara Sweeney, Nick Steiner and Rima Pattanam.

More recently, in July, Vantage hired Richard Wall as head of its US management liability business. He came from AXA XL, where he was regional head of professional liability underwriting.

Hendrick said: “The performance of these teams since their launch has been impressive, and the heads of these businesses add considerable value to our insurance leadership Team. With up to $15 million of excess capacity, we are excited to see their business plans fully implemented in the months ahead.”

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