Grant Maxwell to lead Alternative Risk Transfer line of business at AGCS
Effective immediately, Grant Maxwell will be appointed as Global Head of Alternative Risk Transfer at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), reporting directly to AGCS SE Board Member and Chief Underwriting Officer Corporate Tony Buckle. Since February 2020 Maxwell has led the global Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) team on an interim basis. AGCS’ ART line of business provides structured (re)insurance solutions including fronting solutions tailored to companies’ specific needs.
AGCS Chief Underwriting Officer Tony Buckle says “I look forward to working with Grant and his team to further evolve ART’s client offering and global model. AGCS focuses on serving large, multinational companies – and these are increasingly seeking innovative solutions to protect their earnings and cash flow risks or to cover unusual or complex risks, where traditional insurance products are inadequate. Therefore, ART solutions are an increasingly important differentiator for AGCS in the market.”
ART Head of Underwriting & Portfolio Management since May 2019, Maxwell originally joined AGCS in March 2008 and was Regional Head of ART for AGCS’ Regional Unit London and also Head of ART Deal Management since February 2010. Prior to his time with AGCS, he held senior underwriting roles at XL Capital, Gerling and St Paul Re. Prior to that, he was an actuarial consultant at Tillinghast, a unit of Willis Towers Watson. Maxwell is a graduate in Actuarial Mathematics & Statistics from Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and is a Fellow of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries.
Beyond traditional insurance solutions
ART was established as a standalone line of business at AGCS in November 2019, since then operating in the alternative risk transfer segment together with AGCS’ Capital Solutions line of business which specializes in insurance-linked securities to transfer insurance risks into capital markets. ART is organized as a global line of business with regional teams to service brokers and clients locally while ensuring access to experts around the world. In 2019, ART generated a gross written premium of approximately 800 million Euro, including fronting premiums.
ART solutions go beyond traditional Property & Casualty products and can help companies in several key ways such as self-financing atypical risk, transferring non-traditional risks or bringing multiple lines of coverage into a single, multi-year contract. They are also attractive for companies impacted by reduced earnings due to specific non-damage events like supplier failure where the business is interrupted, but not by traditional events like fire or flood. Given this booming market, AGCS experts have highlighted five key trends in the ART space.
ART also specializes in providing structured global fronting services and/or reinsurance to captive (self-insurance) programs for large corporate customers, using Allianz’s worldwide network of local companies and partners.
