Africa Specialty Risks (ASR), the pan-African focused (re)insurance group, has launched ASR Syndicate 2454 focused on underwriting business across Africa. It is the first African focused syndicate writing business at Lloyds’s and is managed by Apollo.
ASR Syndicate officially began underwriting on 26 April 2024 and has planned gross premium of approximately £70 million for 2024.
The syndicate will focus on underwriting ASR’s existing lines of business, which include Political Risk & Trade Credit, Political Violence and Terrorism, Parametric, Energy, Property, Construction, Liability and Treaty. There are plans to launch new lines of business in 2024, subject to necessary approvals.
This presents a unique opportunity for ASR and Lloyd’s, leveraging ASR’s extensive network and experience in Africa, bringing locally sourced, high quality, African business to the London market. The syndicate will look to build Lloyd’s consortia following Syndicate 2454 to deploy greater capacity.
ASR will also leverage the Lloyd’s global brand and licences to close the large corporate and specialty capacity gap for clients across Africa.
Currently, only 2% of Lloyd’s business comes from Africa, something which ASR Syndicate 2454 is strategically placed to expand. ASR began underwriting in February 2021, with the explicit aim of closing the insurance gap in Africa and facilitating international investment into and across the continent. To date, ASR has de-risked in excess of $20 billion of projects and assets across 49 African countries.
ASR has subsequently expanded to writing business in the Middle East and recently obtained approval “in principle” agreement from the Dubai Financial Services Authority to open an office in the Emirate.
Photo caption: ASR Underwriters
Syndicate 2454 at Lloyd’s will complement ASR’s existing binder arrangements with international and local African reinsurers.
Mikir Shah, CEO of ASR commented: “We are delighted that Syndicate 2454 is now up and running at Lloyd’s.”
“Across ASR, we are building a business whose prime mission is to increase insurance penetration across Africa, and Syndicate 2454 is another positive step in helping us achieve our objective.
“Working with Apollo and Lloyd’s, we hope to be able to bring innovative risk mitigation solutions to the African insurance market and encourage high quality international capital and investment to take advantage of the vast opportunities we see on the continent.”
Martin Boreham, Active Underwriter of Syndicate 2454 and Director of Underwriting at ASR commented: “This is an exciting development for ASR, an opportunity to provide further capacity to Africa through Lloyd’s, alongside our pre-existing binder relationships.
“Our ambition is to be the go-to Lloyd’s market for Africa, working with other Lloyd’s capacity providers to showcase the opportunities in Africa that we already see for (re)insurers on a daily basis.”
Andrew Gray, Director of Apollo’s Strategic Partner Syndicates commented: “Reaching this fantastic milestone is testament to Apollo and ASR’s hard work, expertise and collaboration. We are proud to be a chosen partner of ASR, who are bringing something new and innovative to the Lloyd’s market, and excited to see what the partnership can produce in the future.”
