Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings Ltd. (R&Q) is anticipating entering the U.S. Excess & Surplus (E&S) program management market in the fourth-quarter of 2020, which is earlier than initially planned.
The legacy specialist has provided a performance update for its program management business, which trades under the Accredited banner, for the first half of 2020.
Within the update, R&Q notes that it expects to enter the U.S. E&S program management market in the final quarter of the year, which is ahead of plan amid favourable current market conditions.
Alan Quilter, Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), commented: “We continue to see strong demand from new origination partners as existing insurance capacity faces capital challenges given the magnitude of the insured losses from Covid 19. Moreover, due to current market conditions, we expect to enter the US E&S Program Management market, a large addressable market in which we do not presently compete, in Q4 2020, accelerating our original plans.
“This launch will see Accredited achieve its strategic objective of being a comprehensive program management solutions provider in all its major markets.”
As well as the accelerated entry into the U.S. E&S marketplace, R&Q’s Accredited saw contracted premiums jump by 114% in H1 2020 to $924.5 million, compared with $431.6 million a year earlier.
Gross written premium increased by 43% year-on-year to $247.2 million in H1 2020 against $172.9 million in H1 2019.
Additionally, the firm has reported economic commission revenue of $10.7 million within Accredited in H1 2020, which is up 88% on the same period last year. At the same time, the segment added ten new programs in H1 2020 bringing the total number of active programs to 36, compared with 26 in H1 2019.
Subsequent to the end of the second-quarter of 2020, says R&Q, four new programs were signed with contracted premium of around $200 million, all of which are expected to begin generating gross written premium in the near-term.
“In the first half of 2020, our Program Management business, trading under the Accredited banner, continued to grow strongly. Importantly, this business has significant built-in growth through the 36 existing programs and 34 different distribution partners with whom we have secured contracts as of the end of Q2 2020.
“In addition, the four new programs we signed post the half year, are expected to generate in excess of $200 million of annual recurring Gross Written Premium when they achieve scale over the next 18 months,” said Quilter.
