Exclusive: Roberts to exit Conduit with Pritchard taking over as CUO

By David Bull

April 21 - (The Insurer) - Conduit Re chief underwriting officer Gregory Roberts is leaving the reinsurer, with Nick Pritchard stepping into his position just weeks after it was confirmed that CEO Trevor Carvey was exiting.

As previously reported, founding chairman Neil Eckert has taken the reins as CEO on an interim basis.

Sources with knowledge of the situation said the reason being communicated for the departure of Roberts is that he is leaving the industry and returning to the UK for family reasons.

Pritchard joined Conduit Re in September 2024 as underwriting portfolio and alternative capital manager. Prior to Conduit Re, he was managing director at Aon Bermuda, while his career also includes time spent at Vantage, Neon and Validus Re.

Conduit Re declined to comment on this article and Roberts did not respond to a request for comment.

The exits come after the Bermuda-headquartered company disclosed a preliminary loss estimate of between $100 million and $140 million in relation to the Los Angeles wildfires in January.

Conduit Re said it would buy additional reinsurance to protect it from further earnings volatility through the current financial year, particularly in relation to secondary perils.

The cost of that additional cover would reduce the company’s forecast return on equity for the year to between high single digits and low double digits, it said in a statement.

The company – one of the so-called “class of 2020” – launched with a London IPO with former Brit chief Eckert as executive chairman and Carvey as CEO.

Roberts had been lead underwriter for North American property reinsurance at MS Amlin before parting ways with the carrier in the summer of 2018 after 17 years at the Lloyd’s (re)insurer. MS Amlin undertook a sweeping cost-cutting program in the aftermath of heavy 2017 losses, including from the series of hurricanes that hit the industry.

He re-emerged at Canopius Group’s AmTrust Re business, having established the property reinsurance division for its Syndicate 1861 at Lloyd’s.

Initially joining as head of property, Roberts was one of a series of hires by Conduit Re in 2020 and 2021 as it built out its start-up underwriting management team.

They included Erik Soria joining as head of U.S. casualty from Sirius Group, Marc Bearman arriving as head of specialty – marine and energy, from Axa XL, and former MS Amlin and Apollo Syndicate underwriting executive Chris Board being signed up as head of international property and short-tail specialty. Soria and Board have subsequently left their roles.

Roberts was promoted to group CUO at Conduit Re in February 2022. The Bermudian company said at the time that it had always been the intention to split the roles of CEO and CUO to allow Carvey to concentrate on his position of CEO and the strategic development of the group.