National MGA and insurance program manager Distinguished Programs has expanded into the reinsurance market with the addition of Distinguished Reinsurance (DistinguishedRe), a new platform focused on property reinsurance, led by Frank DiPaola.
With more than 25 years of reinsurance experience, DiPaola will serve as President of DistinguishedRe Property, leading a dedicated team of facultative and treaty underwriters, pricing actuaries, catastrophe modelling professionals, and legal specialists.
DistinguishedRe reportedly offers a “broad appetite” for excess-of-loss facultative, semi-automatic and property treaty placements, with up to $50 million in capacity.
Capabilities are said to include U.S. domestic and international property schedules, as well as direct and brokered individual risk, facultative automatic and treaty placements.
Coverage is also backed by Antares Re, a Bermuda-licensed reinsurer writing all major property, casualty and specialty lines of business.
Distinguished explained that this move represents its first step into the reinsurance market and aligns with its broader strategy of building specialised underwriting platforms through experienced teams.
The addition of DistinguishedRe Property Reinsurance follows recent introductions of its Marine Cargo, Crisis Management, and Transactional Risk programs.
Jason Rotman, president of Distinguished, commented, “Expanding into reinsurance is a natural next step for us, as we see strong potential for the MGA structure in this space.
“Ultimately, our strategy is to invest behind experienced and talented teams, and we are thrilled that Frank and his colleagues have joined us. We are equally excited to work with the Antares team as we collectively build this program.”
DiPaola added, “We see a strong opportunity to bring a more thoughtful, disciplined approach to the property reinsurance market.
“I’m excited to lead this expansion as we build a well-balanced portfolio across key markets and partners. Our focus is on delivering responsive underwriting and tailored facultative excess of loss solutions that align with each client’s needs.”
