Around the P&C insurance industry: Nov. 6, 2019

Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide (AIR) has released a Multiple Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) Model for India that aims to help support probabilistic assessments of potential losses caused by yield shortfalls for 11 major crops across the two main India crop-growing seasons. The MPCI Model for India is an event-based model, with an event defined as an individual crop year made up of a Kharif season (summer) and the following rabi season (winter). The model features a stochastic catalog of 10,000 simulated crop years which describes the wide range of possible crop loss scenarios.

Willis Towers Watson has launched three new cyber insurance policies for clients across the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Western Europe. The policies provide tailored solutions for large enterprise and mid-market clients and contain broad cyber triggers for data breach coverage, regulatory claims and business interruptions. The policies also include important protection for cyberattacks against the supply chain, along with coverage clarity and affirmative cyber coverages to limit silent cyber exposures.

AIG announced proposals to launch a new syndicate at Lloyd’s serving the specialist U.S. high-net-worth market that, subject to regulatory approval, will start writing business effective January 1, 2020. AIG says this specialist syndicate represents “substantial, accretive new business” to the Lloyd’s market, writing up to $1 billion in gross written premiums. Syndicate 2019 will be managed by Talbot Underwriting Limited, the managing agency acquired by AIG in 2018, and will underwrite risks in the U.S. high-net-worth segment.

BrokerTech Ventures has opened the application window for its inaugural 2020 BrokerTech Ventures Accelerator program, which will award a total of $500,000 in seed funding to the winning broker-centric, early-stage startups, with each startup receiving up to $50,000. BrokerTech Ventures described the Accelerator program as an “innovation hub” for startups to test broker-centric ideas and products. The deadline for submissions is November 29, 2019, and selected startups will be notified of acceptance in early February 2020. Subsequently, the first cohort will begin the five-week Accelerator program in March 2020.

The Inter-Company Marketing Group (ICMG) announced the launch of a program that aims to address a problem many trade associations are facing in recruiting new members and driving conference registrations. Developed by the marketing committee of ICMG, the association’s new “Just Refer One” referral program rewards ICMG members with a $250 gift card for every company he or she refers to ICMG and subsequently attends the ICMG Annual Conference on January 29-31, 2020 in Orlando, Florida. ICMG members are asked to log in to the ICMG website and submit a referral under the “Why Join?” section or email the referral’s name and contact information to Administration@icmg.org.

Liberty Mutual Insurance announced the expansion of its M&A practice, Liberty Global Transaction Solutions (Liberty GTS), into Canada. Production Counsel Jonah Goldberg has joined the Liberty team in Toronto as the first Canadian-based member of Liberty GTS.

McGriff, Siebels & Williams (McGriff) announced it is expanding its transportation division with the launch of a new Kansas City office and will be led by Stacy Spurgeon, Paula Brennan and Vicky Owens. McGriff says the division expansion efforts will focus on addressing the new challenges facing transportation companies around compliance, insurance and risk management related to the utilization of contractors.

National insurance broker The Hilb Group announced it has signed a definitive agreement with global investment firm The Carlyle Group for investment funds affiliated with Carlyle to acquire a majority interest of Hilb.  Hilb’s existing management team and employee shareholders are expected to remain significant shareholders. Hilb is currently a portfolio company of Abry Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Fidelis Insurance announced it has taken an equity stake in new MGA Perigon Product Recall Limited and will be providing underwriting capacity. Perigon’s focus will be product recall and product contamination coverage for food and beverage producers, restaurant operations, auto manufacturers as well as a broad range of other recall classes of insurance. This will be managed through Pine Walk Capital Limited, Fidelis’ subsidiary MGA platform.

Badger Mutual Insurance Company has agreed to move its headquarters to The Factory Office Suites at The 42, located at 1134 N 9th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Badger Mutual, a regional insurance provider, will move into their new space in The Factory in the Summer of 2020, once design and construction are completed.

Related: Around the P&C insurance industry: October 30, 2019