Kyle Freeman named Head of ILS at AXIS Capital

AXIS Capital, the Bermuda based specialty insurance and reinsurance company, has announced the promotion of Kyle Freeman to the role of Head of ILS, as the company elevates him to oversee all third-party capital activities.

Effective immediately, Freeman takes on responsibility for leading AXIS Capital’s activities related to third-party assets under management, reporting directly to AXIS Chief Financial Officer Peter Vogt.

The company said Freeman will be tasked with supporting “its ambition to achieve specialty leadership,” in insurance-linked securities (ILS).

“Kyle is a valued leader within the AXIS organization who has extensive knowledge and experience in ILS, working with the investor community, and creating alternative reinsurance structures.

“Further, he has a proven track record of innovation within our company, including most recently leading the Long Walk Re transaction, where AXIS closed the market’s first 144A cyber catastrophe bond,” explained Vogt.

Adding, “We look forward to the continued development of our ILS initiatives under Kyle’s leadership, programs that will be essential to AXIS advancing its leadership position in specialty.”

Freeman was most recently the Head of ILS Structuring, Property at AXIS.

He had joined AXIS in 2021 in that role, taking on responsibility for managing existing investor relationships as well as capital invested in the firm’s range of property catastrophe reinsurance sidecars, catastrophe bonds, joint ventures, and other ILS structures.

Freeman is a well-known figure in the global insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, having a career largely focused on the convergence of reinsurance and capital markets, as well as in portfolio management of catastrophe bonds.

Freeman started his career at primary carrier USAA in 2002 as an Actuary and in that role was responsible for structuring and purchasing USAA’s property catastrophe reinsurance program, including integrating alternative forms of coverage, such as the Residential Re catastrophe bond program.

Freeman then moved to risk modeller AIR Worldwide in 2012, where he spent just over one year leading the ILS group at the firm, after which he worked at investment bank and asset management firm J.P. Morgan, where he spent four years as an ILS Portfolio Manager, managing portfolios that were constructed largely of catastrophe bonds.

Following that, Freeman spent a couple of years as a consultant, before joining AXA XL as Head of North America Programs Pricing, prior to joining AXIS Capital.

Also read our recent interview with Freeman: With first cyber catastrophe bond, investor feedback was critical.