NormanMax building Lloyd's consortium and expanding embedded distribution

By Henry Gale

June 5 - (The Insurer) - NormanMax is in the process of launching a consortium at Lloyd's as it seeks to grow its parametric natural catastrophe business, chief revenue officer Mark Groenheide told The Insurer TV.

NormanMax Syndicate 3939 became the first Lloyd's syndicate dedicated to parametric natural catastrophe risks when it started underwriting last year. "We believe there'll be many others that follow suit," Groenheide said.

"We're in the process of launching our consortium," he continued, "and we believe that that's a real big opportunity for others to join with us on this journey."

While NormanMax's main areas of focus to date have been commercial insurance and reinsurance, Groenheide said the company is now working on embedding parametric covers into traditional insurance programs.

"We had a pilot program with a very large wholesaler in the U.S., worked wonderfully," he said. "We have others that we're signing up at the moment."

"Typically, it's either MGUs packaging our product in conjunction with an E&S product offering, sometimes shared and layered D&F style business, and then also embedded with small commercial writers and others on an E&S basis, niche business."

Groenheide also mentioned opportunities outside the U.S. to embed parametric covers, such as bancassurance in Chile.

Another part of NormanMax's growth strategy is acquisition, Groenheide said. The company acquired FloodFlash, a London-based MGA specialised in parametric flood insurance, last month.

"They've got a great track record, great IP," Groenheide said. "And we're looking at potentially some other acquisitions as well."

He added, "There's a lot of really smart entrepreneurs (in parametrics), but they just lack the distribution, and we can provide them that. So, we're trying to be a place for them to land."