Topsail Re hires Arch Re's Bishop as CUO

BREAKING NEWS

MONDAY | 6 JANUARY 2020

EXCLUSIVE

Topsail Re hires Arch Re’s Bishop as CUO

Cayman Islands start-up reinsurer Topsail Re has hired Jay Bishop from Arch Re as its new CUO, The Insurer can reveal.

The executive was most recently managing director of regional treaty at the Bermudian carrier’s US reinsurance platform, based in the greater Chicago area, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Bishop joined Arch Re in May 2012 from Scor, where he had spent 15 years in various executive positions for the US operation of the French reinsurance giant.

He had earlier spent time at Allstate Re as a reinsurance underwriter in the mid-90s.

As previously reported, Topsail Re was launched late in 2018 by former JLT Re and Axiom Re executive David Johnson ahead of the 1 January 2019 renewal season.

The privately held reinsurer started out targeting primarily quota shares, property cat, per risk and proportional business as well as property cat retro.

In an interview with this publication last summer, Johnson said that the portfolio written at that stage was spread across multiple lines, but that approximately 45 percent had been auto-related as the reinsurer looked to grow off a low volatility base.

Then less than 20 percent of its book had been derived from non-standard auto (NSA) quota shares, with several insurtech-related standard auto deals accounting for another 20 percent, and commercial auto deals adding 10 percent.

General liability quota shares generated approximately 5 percent of its book, with net line property quota shares another 10 percent.

The remainder of the portfolio was driven by property-related deals including quota share, per risk and cat, and catastrophe retro.

At that time the company was projecting over $100mn in written premiums for its first full year. Sources said the start-up is on track to more than double that top line in 2020 as it continues to diversify its portfolio and grow in areas of the market that are seeing improving dynamics.

The reinsurer has written several program deals but the majority of its book so far has been generated from fully risk-bearing traditional insurers rather than fronting and issuing carriers.

Topsail Re has significant headroom for further top line growth and is aiming to reach annual written premium levels in excess of $300mn within the next four years.

The company will also consider acquisitions as it looks to build out its platform.

Topsail set up a Greensboro, North Carolina-based underwriting services arm to market on behalf of Topsail Re.

Topsail Re did not respond to a request for comment on this article. Arch Re declined to comment.