Global specialty reinsurer Canopius Group has announced the launch of its algorithmic underwriting platform, Vave, as a managing general agency (known in parts of APAC as an underwriting agency).
Vave, developed in-house at Canopius, began trading in May 2019 and has since quoted more than 1.2 million risks, representing US$2.2 billion in premium. Vave MGA is predicted to surpass US$100 million in premium by the end of this year. As a digital platform with diverse capital, it is positioned for rapid and sustained growth, Canopius said.
The MGA is led by Marek Shafer, Jamie Martin and Rob Porter.
Vave has a growing US homeowners’ and monoline flood portfolio, and will be launching a commercial property product later in the year. Its algorithmic pricing engine is connected to the largest brokers in the US surplus lines wholesale market, enabling them to quote and bind risks in seconds.
“Vave’s vast potential was evident very early on, and as an MGA it can access the capital required to really set it loose in terms of scale and sophistication,” Shafer said. “It is hyper-efficient for brokers and, with greatly reduced frictional costs, highly effective from a capacity perspective. Vave is not a delegated authority play; in fact, it is arguably the opposite as it is bringing the underwriting back to London.”
“Vave is a fresh approach to insuring high-volume risk, bringing clarity and efficiency to risk portfolio management,” said Mike Duffy, chief underwriting officer for Canopius. “Vave was created as this is exactly the kind of innovation Lloyd’s requires from the market. After three years of development and a highly successful year of trading, we believe Vave is the future of Lloyd’s. By reducing costs and improving data accuracy through its digital processes, Vave is already demonstrating some of the market’s key ambitions outlined in Blueprint Two.”
