Antares Group eyes $2 billion GWP target after 54% growth in 2024

By Aidan Gregory

April 3 - (The Insurer) - Antares Group is on course to grow its gross written premium to $2 billion over the next five years after expanding by 54% in 2024, the group's senior management told The Insurer.

The UK- and Bermuda-based insurer said its GWP rose to $1.1 billion last year, boosted by by the addition of a large reinsurance deal with Tradex, the Markerstudy-backed UK insurer. Excluding this transaction, its organic growth was 15%.

Antares’ core business made a profit after tax of $150 million, up 10% from the previous year, with a combined ratio of 93%. This result was largely driven by Lloyd's Syndicate 1274 and its Bermuda reinsurance business, which form its commercial division.

The results follow a restructure last year into three divisions – retail, commercial and legacy.

“We concentrated on those lines of business where we had expertise and a good team structure,” said Mike van der Straaten, CEO of Qatar Insurance Group-owned Antares, in an interview with The Insurer. “That's really what we've continued with today.”

The retail division supports retail lines via MGAs and reached “almost breakeven” in its first year of trading, Antares said.

Kevin Wenzel, CFO of Antares, said the retail business will be a key driver of the company's growth, having signed up four MGAs so far.

“We can see really positive momentum there for our retail business to be growing in the UK,” Wenzel told The Insurer. “We've got a big pipeline of opportunities for MGAs, and we are going through a process of narrowing down to work out the ones which we want to partner with.”

Wenzel said Antares plans to reach $2 billion of premium within a five-year period, subject to market conditions.

“Rates are coming off, but we still see that there's very strong performance and some good profit to be made in the current market, so we're still reasonably comfortable,” said Wenzel.

The legacy division, which manages Antares’s run-off portfolio, reported a loss after tax of $62 million last year due to reserving on historic books of business and run-off portfolios. This was an improvement from a loss of $140 million in 2023.

Antares said it reduced the premiums for its legacy business from $880 million to $74 million, as it continues winding down these portfolios to completion, including a large motor insurance book in Gibraltar, where it used to write “heavy” amounts of business, according to Wenzel.

The company added in its earnings statement that its natural catastrophe losses in 2024 were “relatively light", with $17 million of losses from hurricanes Milton and Helene, and $22 million of exposure to the Baltimore bridge collapse.

“We are in a much more robust and better position than we've ever been,” said van der Straaten. “There are always challenges that we're going to face, but I think the portfolio that we currently have, we're very happy with that.”

Antares has provisionally reserved $75 million to cover losses arising from the Los Angeles wildfires in January. “This wildfire is the biggest one we've ever seen, so it is very significant across the market,” said Wenzel. “Like other market participants, we expect to ride it out.

“It will have an impact on us, undoubtedly, but we still expect to perform reasonably well this year, despite that,” added Wenzel.