Reinsurance broker Inver Re continues to grow its team in Bermuda, adding expertise in numerous areas as it looks to expand alongside its unwavering commitment to have best in class data and analytics, leading Chris Bonard, CEO of Bermuda, to be pretty bullish about life on the island.
In May 2021, The Ardonagh Group announced the acquisition of the insurance operations of BGC Partners, which already had a growing presence in Bermuda through insurance and capital advisory businesses, and a small reinsurance operation.
A month later, Ardonagh launched Inver Re as a new reinsurance broker that would draw upon the pool of expertise of its combined businesses. Now, with the completion of the deal with BGC in November 2021, Inver Re, across its hubs in Bermuda, London, and the U.S., is home to all Ardonagh’s reinsurance operations.
As the reinsurance intermediary continues to expand, we spoke with Bonard, CEO of Ardonagh’s Bermuda business operations including Inver Re, about the company’s proposition, and what to expect from Inver Re in the months ahead.
“The idea is that everything that touches reinsurance at Ardonagh now goes into Inver Re,” said Bonard. “Essentially, our vision is to hire the best talent we can get our hands on, build best-in-class services, and create an entrepreneurial platform that combines operational skill backed-up by the power of a big organisation.”
While that may not sound too different from what others in the space are trying to achieve, Bonard explained that what makes the firm more unique is its extremely large global insurance business, which is very diverse.
In Bermuda specifically, Inver Re continues to grow through additions of talent in areas like parametrics, and also the recent establishment of a Bermuda-based SAC company.
“One of the things we’re trying to do here is create what I call regulatory tramlines. We obviously have to run a robust regulatory business, and every part of it has to run along those tramlines. But unlike the bigger shops, we’re agile enough to share expertise and encourage collaboration across the whole spectrum within those tramlines.
“By bringing our insurance, reinsurance and capital markets teams in Bermuda, through both Price Forbes and Inver Re, we have a holistic view of the market, what it’s doing and where it’s going,” said Bonard.
Add to this the new SAC license on the side, and it essentially becomes a very clever transformer vehicle for the firm’s insurance to reinsurance business.
“We asked ourselves, ‘How do we bring solutions to our existing businesses and customers without trying to compete directly?” said Bonard.
One of the key foundations and pillars at Inver Re is the strong desire to have best in class data and analytics.
Discussing this, Bonard explained that with some of his colleagues, notably Chris Sharpe with his background, Inver Re has built a very good and nimble data and analytics team, which he thinks can compete with the best of them.
“Our attitude is that if you want all your data put through a cookie cutter, give it to one of the big guys because they’ve got thousands of people doing that. But, if you actually want someone to sit and properly analyse your data and offer an independent insight into it, we’re far more creative in terms of how we do it.
“We’ve obviously got all the modelling capabilities and so on, but we hire people that have sat on the underwriting side, so that when they’re looking at portfolios, they really understand the challenges the CFO or CRO is facing. Essentially, we bring more value to the equation,” said Bonard.
All of this, he explained, comes back to the reinsurance broker’s offering.
“Inver Re is a platform that enables entrepreneurial, smart, driven brokers or underwriters to come together to actually bring something different to the customer.
“We are young, but if you look at what our capabilities are today compared to what they were a year ago, and certainly compared to what they were two years ago, we’ve built out some very strong capabilities. I think we’re beginning to prove that the talent is attracted to us in a market which is highly competitive.
“It’s not for everyone, but the model seems to work for our people as well as for our clients. We aim to get the most senior people working on the accounts – which means they’re doing the hands-on job they love, and clients are getting serious experience and expertise on their side. Candidly, it means we work harder and faster than the big guys – we have to, because we’ve got to win every piece of business. Our service proposition has to be excellent, and we have to be hungrier,” said Bonard.
Given what’s been going on in the reinsurance intermediary space in terms of the M&A that’s taken place, Bonard feels that many are disenfranchised and stressed how Inver Re is in a strong position to offer an alternative.
“We’re part of a very large, diverse organisation. It’s diverse in products, diverse geographically. Inver Re is the kind of place, in summary, where reinsurance is done within The Ardonagh Group. And Bermuda is a central hub. It’s very much the global lens into the whole market because we tend to find that things on the reinsurance side break faster in Bermuda than they do in other parts of the world,” said Bonard.
Another plus of Bermuda is the regulator, which Bonard noted is very good to work with as you’re encouraged to do things on the island, ultimately enabling Inver Re to run multiple disciplines all within its regulatory parameters.
“We’re pretty upbeat about it, actually, we’re pretty bullish about the market here,” said Bonard.
Looking to the future, Bonard told Reinsurance News that Inver Re’s goal is to continue to build and grow.
“We’re an organic growth company, but if the right M&A opportunity comes along that fits our model, then you’ll see us do some M&A,” said Bonard.
“Hopefully, you’ll also see a lot of talent growth. In Bermuda, we’re looking to make some fairly large strategic hires – it’s not about thousands of people, it’s about the right people,” he added.
In the U.S. and London, Bonard also expects a lot of growth, in terms of building out the firm’s capabilities.
“Our plan is to continue that organic hire of disaffected talent. We’re laser focused on what we’re trying to build and have an extremely firm view of it.
“You’ll see us focus on where we see the opportunities, which is having Bermuda, London, and the U.S. operating as one. I think that it’s appreciated by both the people working for us, and the people we work for,” he concluded.
