Accredited America focused on diversifying growth amid Meek-led revamp

By Chris Munro

May 22 - (The Insurer) – Accredited America is back on the front foot as it grows and diversifies its book after a period of stabilisation under president Grace Meek, who spent much of her first 13 months at the programs-focused specialty insurer bringing in new talent and ensuring its portfolio is in a stronger position.

Former Homesite Underwriting Managers president and CEO Meek joined Accredited America in April last year. She was tasked with leading the company’s underwriting and program management, along with spearheading the platform’s growth.

When she joined Accredited America, parent Accredited was in the process of a drawn-out sale by R&Q to current owner Onex Partners. Accredited is now also part-owned by its employees.

Talking to Program Manager, Meek said the company entered 2025 with a global focus on “operational excellence”.

She said her time since joining the company has been spent “on systems, efficiency and processes”, an overhaul she expects will take 12 to 18 months.

“We’re part-way through that journey, and for me now, the focus is on the portfolio, optimising our reinsurance purchasing, and improving the profitability of each program. Some of them are profitable already, and some of them need a little bit of tweaking.

“Others, we don’t see eye to eye with the partners, so we will part with them for philosophical reasons. It’s a natural evolution,” she said.

NEW TALENT

Meek said another focus is on attracting new people into the business “who understand our motivation”.

“To me, it's all about having a profitable portfolio which will bring stronger reinsurance stability in the long term, and then buying reinsurance on a more efficient basis.”

As a specialty insurer focused on programs, Accredited manages its capital via efficient use of reinsurance.

Meek said Accredited America usually retains up to 20% on a program, with the average across its portfolio standing at around 10%, although it has some partnerships where the entirety of the risk is passed through to reinsurers.

Part of Accredited America’s evolution under Meek’s leadership is to sculpt the platform’s portfolio to be in a stronger position.

Meek said Accredited America when she joined had been overweight in commercial auto, and in 2025 the company has been working to broaden its portfolio.

“In 2025 we will grow significantly in commercial property. We do some personal property, but our growth has really been on the commercial side, and will continue to be in 2025,” said Meek.

“Casualty is another area for us to grow in, outside commercial auto.

“We’ve brought on a cyber program, and we’ve grown in professional liability. And we really want to focus on more casualty specialty business: we brought on a public entity portfolio this year.

“We’re really just trying to diversify the portfolio so that no one line is really heavily weighted,” Meek detailed.

Programs and MGAs-focused carrier Accredited has two operating divisions, the Meek-led Accredited America and Accredited UK & Europe which is helmed by Stuart McMurdo who joined the company on 1 October last year.

Meek said that across Accredited, including both Accredited America and Accredited UK & Europe, the company will write around $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion of premium in 2025.

At present, Meek said Accredited’s premium volume is split down the middle between the U.S.-focused and UK/Europe operations.

The company’s current headcount has swelled to around 200 people, with Meek noting that Accredited has hired “a significant amount of people” since Canadian investment firm Onex acquired the business.

Among those recruits in the U.S. are the senior hires of Lou Fischl, who arrived from Scor last August as chief underwriting officer (CUO) for property, and Carol Tyrrell, who joined from Everest Insurance in December as CUO for casualty.

“We're still hiring, but now it's the lower level that we're filling in,” explained Meek.

“We’re staffing up on the operations side just because of some of the new processes we're putting in and our new focus,” she said.

HEIGHTENED COMPETITION

Accredited America’s push to grow its portfolio comes at a time when the fronting market in the U.S. has never been more competitive, with around 30 companies operating in the sector.

But Meek said Accredited America, as well as the broader Accredited business, is now in a stronger position to expand in what continues to be a growing market.

“When I first joined last April, I decided to halt all new business, assess the existing portfolio and wait for the Onex sale to close at the end of June 2024.

“Once the sale closed we were in a much stronger position and with the talent inside the business, we’re attracting new programs.

“There are people who know me from the past, or others in our company, and that’s bringing business in. And given the growth in the MGA business, there’s still not enough capacity for all the business that’s coming into the market,” Meek noted.

“Not everybody does property, not everybody does commercial auto, or casualty, and some people don't like public entity, or a company may be saturated in one line of business, so you need others to come in and fill that spot.”

Meek said there also remain some hard-to-place areas of the market, notably commercial auto, while she added “there’s only so much cat capacity that any one carrier can put out”.

“Not everyone has the same appetite,” she said.