AGCS targets ART expansion with new set-up and leadership

In line with the growing importance of non-traditional insurance solutions for global businesses, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) is reshaping its Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) line of business into two new specialist teams.

With effect from November 1, 2018, the Insurance-Linked Markets team becomes a standalone line of business known as Capital Solutions, led by current ART Chief Underwriting Officer Richard Boyd. The remaining ART practice groups providing Corporate Solutions, Reinsurance, and Climate Solutions will continue under the existing name of Alternative Risk Transfer, led by Michael Hohmann who moves to ART from his current position as global head of liability at AGCS.

“Large companies are increasingly seeking to assume more control over their risk management beyond traditional insurance products in property or liability. With our two new lines of business, we can respond to these needs by designing multi-line, multi-year, parametric or capital-market solutions to protect our clients from earnings and cash flow risks. Our new structure and leadership team will help AGCS to further evolve and grow this important segment of our business”, said Hartmut Mai, AGCS board member and chief underwriting officer corporate.

Increasingly, larger multinational businesses demand more than a product-based response, looking for customised solutions to their more complex emerging or intangible risks, which often cannot be covered adequately under traditional insurance. The tailor-made approach of the new ART line of business brings together AGCS and ART products and services within a bespoke solution, often including non-traditional covers on a multi-line, multi-year basis.

It also specialises in services such as fronting for captive (self-insurance) programs for large corporate customers, using Allianz’s worldwide network of local companies and partners, as well as specialist reinsurance and bespoke weather insurance solutions – for example, to protect businesses such as utility companies against fluctuations in weather patterns which directly affect their revenues.

Similarly, there is increasing demand from both investors and insurers for products which bring together the insurance and capital markets. These Insurance Linked Securities products are typically where capital market investors such as pension funds are interested in accessing insurance risks to diversify their portfolios, for example through catastrophe bonds. As a global insurer with an unusually diverse portfolio, AGCS is ideally placed to source insurance risks – typically event-driven risks such as earthquakes and hurricanes – that can then be structured by the Capital Solutions team into a form that is acceptable to capital market investors.

Ciara Brady to lead Liability line of business globally

To succeed Michael Hohmann as global head of liability, Ciara Brady joins AGCS from January 1, 2019, moving on from her current role as head casualty Treaty Global and International for Swiss Re.