Five years ago today, underwriters at Beazley USA Services Inc., a subsidiary of Beazley Group, one of the largest insurers in the Lloyd’s business market, bound their first professional liability policy on US soil. Beazley’s locally underwritten US business has since grown to more than $370 million in annual premiums and Beazley’s US underwriters bound more than 24,000 policies last year.
On March 2, Beazley chief executive officer Andrew Horton will formally open Beazley’s newest US offices - 17,000 square feet of space at Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan, designed to accommodate 75 underwriters and claims service professionals. Unlike most insurers, Beazley does not have a ‘claims department’ segregated from underwriting.
Beazley has prospered in the US with an approach that has long found favor with large scale US clients insuring with the Beazley syndicates at Lloyd’s in London. To gain traction for its US operation, Beazley has been able to point to its Lloyd’s track record.
The Beazley syndicates insure a third of the Am Law 200 list of the top law firms in the United States; more than half of the top 50 US architectural and engineering design firms as ranked by Engineering News-Record; two thirds of the top 25 global software and software services companies as ranked by Software Magazine; and four of the top 10 ‘Honor Roll’ US hospitals as listed by US News and World Report.
“Our idea was to bring a style of underwriting that had served us very well in London to the US,” said Mr Horton. “We knew from our discussions with brokers in the US market that above all they wanted straight answers from their underwriters. For a broker time is money. They wanted to work with empowered experts who could respond quickly and wouldn’t waste their time.”
SOURCE Beazley plc
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