Acrisure Re plans to broaden access to the cat bond market: Witteveen & Kriesch

Reinsurance broker Acrisure Re’s entry into the catastrophe bond space was driven by strong client demand, and as the offering continues to gain traction less than a year after inception, there’s anticipation that new, different sponsors will enter the market.

Acrisure Re’s Corporate Advisory and Solutions (ARCAS) division expanded into the catastrophe bond market last year, hiring Patrick Witteveen and Sandro Kriesch as Managing Directors of Catastrophe Bond Solutions, tasked with leading and developing the firm’s full-service cat bond offering.

Both Witteveen and Kriesch are highly experienced insurance-linked securities (ILS) professionals, and with the cat bond market experiencing an impressive phase of growth, we felt it would be a good time to speak to the pair about the firm’s role and ambitions in the space.

“Over the last 100 days, there has been more traction for us in the market,” said Kriesch. “Acrisure Re is part of Acrisure, the largest SME broker in the US, and we are part of the advisory arm ARCAS. So, we’re representing the interests of our clients. And it’s not really about the wish to enter a highly competitive market per se.”

Kriesch explained that it’s not the case that Acrisure Re and ARCAS suddenly decided to enter the cat bond market, but that it’s really a drive from clients of both entities to be active in the space.

“They’re seeking an alternative angle to the incumbents that are already here, being the bigger brokers, which may have serviced them or not, but they’d like to see a different angle. They feel it’s an area they need to be in, and they feel that now is a good time for them to enter this market,” said Kriesch.

Expanding on this, Witteveen stressed that the team “does not have the illusion that we’re going to be able to execute the same volumes as some of the more established brokers in this space, but the objective is to stay close to our clients and offer services, that adds value .”

In terms of competition and being a differentiator in the marketplace, Kriesch told Artemis that it’s not really about being competitive in a ruthless sense.

“We’ve seen this rise in outstanding volume, it’s just amazing what’s occurred over the last 18 months, but there is room for competition. But it’s not about being cutthroat in the sense that if we come in, others are losing big time business. No, there’s room for others to come in. Nobody falls to poverty because Acrisure Re or ARCAS is active as well,” he said.

Adding, “We believe our clients, the future sponsors hopefully of cat bonds, will be maybe a different sample to what our competitors have because we have a different client base.

“So, I guess we’re looking at it as we’re adding additional volume. We want to open the market further even, to other participants. We want to service those who have not been to the market so far. And we believe that the access to the market should be broadened and give other people, other sponsors access to it. That’s what we want to do. We want to be very active in those fields.”

“It’s about value creation for everybody involved. We took the strategic decision to offer everything in-house as a one stop shop, and from that point of view it makes a lot of sense,” concluded Witteveen.

Read all of our interviews with ILS market and reinsurance sector professionals here.