Westfield Specialty International’s Evans eyes double-digit top-line growth over 2025

By Rebecca Delaney

June 3 - (The Insurer) - Westfield Specialty International expects to grow its top line by 10% to 15% over 2025, which would take the unit's gross written premiums above 720 million pounds ($974 million), CEO Graham Evans told The Insurer.

The carrier’s London market platform is centred around Syndicate 1200, which was acquired from Argo in February 2023.

Syndicate 1200 reported a 12% year-on-year increase in GWP to 653.5 million pounds in 2024 (its first full year of operation under Westfield Specialty Managing Agency). This accounted for around 55% of Westfield Specialty’s overall GWP for the year.

“We've got quite a lot of new initiatives, we've been hiring a number of new underwriters and adding certain products,” Evans said in an interview.

“In the first year, it's always a little bit tricky to figure out where those are going to land, but we'd certainly be looking at growth between 10% and 15% in terms of the top line which is, for us, a healthy and reasonable level when market conditions are right.”

Based on Syndicate 1200’s GWP in 2024, this would take the 2025 projection to roughly between 720 million pounds and 750 million pounds.

“We don't have a fixed view around targeting the top line. We tend to focus on the fact that we want business where we feel comfortable that we can be in over the long term and we can achieve a reasonable level of performance,” said Evans.

Westfield Specialty has general guidelines for a sub-95% combined ratio (Syndicate 1200 posted a combined ratio of 93.6% in 2024), with Evans underlining the need for adaptability over the market cycle.

“We're a little over two years in from the acquisition of the syndicate. Strategically, we felt from an overall pricing perspective that the market was in a reasonably healthy position and that the opportunity to grow was reasonable,” he explained.

The international division set out a three-year timeline to firstly consolidate the syndicate’s existing portfolio, before looking to establish a broader set of products.

This included developing underwriting leadership across the division’s six core (re)insurance specialties. Evans said the six positions have been filled over the last two years, most recently in April with the appointment of Chris Gray, formerly global head of marine reinsurance at Axis, as divisional director for reinsurance.

STORY OF PATIENCE

“Quite often with public companies, the push for growth is not necessarily a logical one. Typically you have a successful period, perhaps in a hardening market, and a public company likes to look at that and keep growing,” Evans continued.

“The mutual story is one of patience – looking to build value over time, not necessarily looking to smash the lights out every year, but to build a high-quality business with a long-term strategy and to give the underwriters the time and the scope to really deliver their potential.”

Evans pointed to this strategy as a key driver behind the expansion of Westfield Specialty International’s London headcount, with estimations that 30 or more underwriters have joined the business since the syndicate acquisition.

“We've been successful with the underwriters coming in because I think they feel the freedom to build a strategy over time, not the need to deliver a quarterly result,” he added.

Notable hires in the year to date include Axis’ Mark Benbow to lead the newly launched fine art and specie team and former Argo Group executive Steven Boughal as chief underwriting officer for management liability, as well as a spate of other hires across offshore energy, cargo, political violence and aviation war.

Evans noted that the newly launched fine art and offshore energy teams in particular do not face expectations of rapid growth by the end of the year.

“When we're talking about 2025, there's a great deal of uncertainty on exactly how quickly they land. The nice thing for them is that it's not a case of us or our parent putting a huge amount of pressure on them to deliver fast growth overnight,” he said.

“It's about getting the right basics in place – making sure we've got the right connections, the right distribution, systems that work for their different businesses. They'll grow pretty rapidly in the next two to three years, but not necessarily this year. Time is on their side.”

The same strategy applies to the newly launched reinsurance division under Gray, with Westfield Specialty having first shrunk the syndicate's concentrated reinsurance portfolio before establishing broader capabilities.

“We want the ability to be a little bit more diversified and to react accordingly to market conditions in given sectors,” said Evans.

“Chris is building that strategy now, predominantly for next year or for the 1.1 season, so we have a little bit of time on our side. But I'd expect to see us be a little bit more active across more specialties than our current offering, which is marine reinsurance and casualty treaty.”

Evans pointed to cyber and the energy sector generally as other areas of focus where long-term demand looks set to fuel insurance market growth.

“If we can match a strategy in what we think is a long-term product – i.e. one that will continue to provide a high level of demand in the coming years – then we'll look to match it to an individual, and that will be the moment at which we'll think about entering that market,” he said.

“Just because we think we might have cornered the market, we try not to overdo that. If the market is really problematic, we take a softer approach at that time – if we needed to, we would shrink the business. Our expectation is that we wouldn't have to do that for quite some time, given the opportunities and the diversification that we have.”