The Lloyd’s syndicates have now published their results and, in some cases, added detail and an outlook for 2021. As in the past three years, IMN is summarizing the results from all syndicates that have a marine interest which have provided some information on the marine side.
Active Underwriter – Alistair Robson
AXIS Syndicate 1686 is a Lloyd’s Syndicate of AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd, the Bermuda-based holding company for the AXIS group of companies.
The Syndicate is managed by AXIS Managing Agency Ltd. ACHL is the Syndicate’s sole capital provider.
The Syndicate commenced underwriting for contracts incepting from January 1st 2014 onwards.
The Syndicate predominately writes marine, property, terrorism, professional lines, casualty, accident and health, political risk and reinsurance.
For the Financial year ended December 2020 the Syndicate generated GWP of $1.256bn, representing an annual growth rate of 10%. This was driven by positive rate changes on renewal business and the annualization of business that renewed into the Syndicate from AXIS Syndicate 2007 throughout 2019.
The Syndicate covers more than 25 individual classes of business; no single class of business comprises more than 16% of total GWP.
Throughout the year the Syndicate continued actions to reposition its portfolio to improve underlying underwriting performance, running off four classes of business exited during 2019 and significantly reducing premiums and exposures in historically unprofitable classes.
The upward trend in rate movement continued throughout 2020, building on the positive rate change delivered in 2018 and 2019. Overall rate change for the Syndicate was 7.9%, against a plan of 3.4%, with all bar one class of business delivering a positive rate change for the year.
Alistair Robson noted that, despite positive market conditions, the (re)insurance industry suffered significant financial losses arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and an elevated number of natural catastrophes around the globe.
In 2020 the Syndicate produced a loss of $100.3m (2019: loss of $65.3m). The primary drivers of the adverse result were losses arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, principally losses arising from business interruption in the property portfolio, and an elevated level of losses resulting from natural catastrophes, principally from the North Atlantic hurricane season.
Excluding the impact of losses arising from Covid-19 and natural catastrophes, the Syndicate’s underlying results materially improved over the prior year. Robson said that he remained confident that “with the actions taken to reposition our portfolios, continued improvement in market conditions, selected growth in attractive classes of business and investments in our talent, data and analytics, the Syndicate is on track to deliver improved performance in 2021.
| KPIs $000s | 2020 | 2019 | Change |
| Gross written premium | 1,256,152 | 1,142,575 | 9.9% |
| Net earned premium | 846,247 | 518,987 | 63.1% |
| Net technical loss | (119,938) | (70,056) | 71.2% |
| CR (excluding inv inc and FX) | 114.2% | 113.5% |
Sector
| 2020 £000s | GPW | GPE | GCI | Op exps | Reins Bal | Total |
| Direct Marine | 56,042 | 57,619 | (33,034) | (18,304) | (6,471) | (190) |
| Direct Energy Marine | 15,589 | 15,077 | (3,228) | (5,976) | (4,736) | 1,137 |
| Total Direct | 877,937 | 862,611 | (621,131) | (294,538) | (53,892) | (106,950) |
| Reinsurance | 378,215 | 354,013 | (239,376) | (80,134) | (47,491) | (12,988) |
| Grand Total | 1,256,152 | 1,216,624 | (860,507) | (374,672) | (101,383) | (119,938) |
| 2019 £000s | GPW | GPE | GCI | Op exps | Reins Bal | Total |
| Direct Marine | 59,319 | 41,985 | (32,733) | (16,881) | (1,555) | (9,184) |
| Direct Energy marine | 17,611 | 17,470 | (2,204) | (5,192) | (6,427) | 3,647 |
| Total Direct insurance | 753,936 | 547,765 | (374,316) | (196,322) | (21,735) | (44,608) |
| Reinsurance | 388,639 | 241,522 | (142,717) | (68,975) | (55,278) | (25,448) |
| Grand Total | 1,142,575 | 789,287 | (517,033) | (265,297) | (77,013) | (70,056) |
Emoluments
The active underwriter received remuneration of $1.1m (2019: $0.9m) during the year based on the allocation of his service as active underwriter as a proportion of his service to other AXIS Group entities.