London:
After MS Amlin, another syndicate of Lloyd’s of London, Markel International, a specialist insurer, has received a licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to undertake reinsurance business in the country.
The capacity will be provided by Markel’s Syndicate 3000 at Lloyd’s and written through the Lloyd’s India platform.
Markel India will provide treaty and facultative reinsurance to local Indian insurers, in a broad range of commercial classes. It will initially focus on marine, energy, contingency, trade credit, and professional and financial risks.
Markel India will be led by Deepika Mathur, who has had some 20 years’ experience in the Indian insurance industry, most recently as executive vice president at HDFC Ergo, the Indian/German joint venture general insurance company, with responsibility for the casualty and financial lines business.
Shankar Garigiparthy, Country Manager of Lloyd's India, said: "Lloyd's is delighted to welcome Markel to Lloyd's India to develop reinsurance solutions to support the needs of the Indian market. India is seeing strong growth in the (re)insurance sector, and Lloyd’s is firmly committed to the market and well-positioned to introduce new products to complement local reinsurance expertise."
“We think there will be a strong level of demand from Indian insurers for the sort of specialty products and expertise that we can now deliver locally," said William Stovin, president of Markel International.
"We are delighted that our plans in India can now start to be realised.”
Mathur commented: "The Indian economy has had a stellar performance since the turn of the century and that has seen a parallel increase in the demand for newer and more specialised insurance products. That means we can bring our expertise to the local market and help in areas where businesses may be without the right insurance to protect themselves. We can help meet that need.”
After Lloyd’s was allowed to set up its operations in India in 2017,MS Amlin was the first Lloyd’s insurer to join the reinsurance branch and their specialist underwriting team offers a range of reinsurance products to Indian cedants.
Kent Chaplin, CEO, Lloyd’s Asia Pacific said, “We are looking at doing potentially USD 10 million of Indian business during the current year-2018. We already have two syndicates in India and we are in talks with 3-4 more syndicates. Every year, we will be adding two syndicates in India.’’
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Lloyd’s has got 90 syndicates in London and will continue to do offshore business(India) from its London office.
“In future we will see more and more business happening for Indian clients from our local branch here. Thus the business happening from London office for Indian clients will decrease,’’ said Chaplin.
Lloyd’s had mobilised USD 240 million business from India in 2017, showing a growth of 11 per cent over past year, and most of the business happened from our offices at Singapore and London, leaving a very small amount of business happening from India.