Emil Issavi, Chief Executive Officer and President of Ryan Re, said Nationwide and Ryan Re are targeting growth in specialty reinsurance, but will do so thoughtfully, emphasising that risk management is at the centre of decision-making.
In our latest video interview, which took place around the annual Rendez-Vous de Septembre (RVS) in Monte Carlo, Reinsurance News spoke with Russ Johnston, President of Nationwide Commercial, E&S and Specialty, and Emil Issavi, CEO and President of Ryan Re.
Issavi said the specialty reinsurance platform gives Nationwide the opportunity to grow in an area where it did not previously have a presence, while providing diversification benefits, provided the business is managed carefully across the wider portfolio.
Issavi stressed: “One of the important points that I want to make is that sometimes it’s very easy to say, ‘this business is completely a diversifier for us, it’s nothing like Nationwide in the past.’ It’s very easy to say that, and then the capital model gives you a return, and it all works. I think that’s where we really want to emphasise the balancing of our underwriting, thoughtfulness, risk, and what does that play.
“Specialty Re gives us that ability to be extremely thoughtful about growth in a certain area, that if you’re careful about the aggregations, if you’re careful about how that’s affecting and clashing with some other events, it is all that it can be because Nationwide wasn’t in that business at all. So that platform has given us the ability to have options and thinking about what we want to do in that line of business in the future.
“That is an excellent place to be because it’s not correlating to anything else we’re doing. We’ve got a really good team. We are certainly going to look to grow it, but thoughtfully.”
Issavi emphasised that careful expansion is central to the firm’s approach, with risk management at the centre of decision-making.
“I would call underwriting and risk management the same thing, because you have to understand not just the individual risk, but how it plays out in the entire portfolio. So we love all the abilities that the Markel transaction has given us, especially in the Specialty Re and London area,” he said.
For context, Nationwide acquired the renewal rights to all of Markel Insurance’s Global Reinsurance business in August 2025, delegating the underwriting and ongoing management of these policies to Ryan Re Underwriting Managers (Ryan Re).
Issavi continued, “I have always found London going back to my very early days that I had experienced there, quite innovative in thinking about the business and the solutions they were providing. Not necessarily just ‘this is the box that I’m going to underwrite at’, but also fitting into what I earlier said to provide solutions and unique solutions.”
He stressed that it is still early days, with this being the first year of the renewal, but said they have achieved what they set out to do. Ryan Re and Nationwide are now “looking under the hood” to assess how they can expand and grow in areas that make sense for their partnership and the specialties surrounding it.
During the interview, Johnston emphasised that Nationwide is a customer-driven business and is focused on how it can become more meaningful to the customers supported through its reinsurance business.
Johnston said, “At the end of the day, it’s about how can we become more meaningful to the customers that we support through our reinsurance business, and so a bit of this is really what does our customer need from us, and are there areas that they need help and support from us that perhaps we don’t do today.
“Then what do we need to do to make the right investments to support those customers more holistically, so it’s still a customer-driven business, and we want to make sure we’re providing solutions to them that they find helpful.”
Watch our full video interview to hear more from Johnston and Issavi on current reinsurance market conditions, the strong partnership between the two companies, the Markel renewal deal, and more.
