Westfield Specialty targets $2.5 bln premium, eyes Europe expansion
Westfield Specialty president Jack Kuhn said the company expects to finish the year with gross written premium just shy of $2.5 billion and is planning geographic expansion into Europe. The insurer also aims to further diversify its product offerings in the US.
By Michael Loney Oct 6 (The Insurer) — Westfield Specialty president Jack Kuhn said he was “not content with the status quo” for his company, with Europe the “next big step” geographically alongside continued product diversification in its US operations. 1%. 3%. 5 billion.
” Westfield Specialty’s US platform generated $642 million in gross written premium in the first half and its specialty international operations $540 million. “We think we have a lot of strong fundamental pieces in place between our international and our US platforms, but I would say I'm not content with the status quo,” said Kuhn. ” Kuhn said the international operations had yet to see a meaningful impact from the Luxembourg company market subsidiary that was set up and started writing in April. The company has ambitions to make other moves in Europe.
“I think on the geography side, our next big step will be into Europe,” he said. “I don't necessarily know we'll be running around opening up offices in every country. ” Us Opportunities Arise From Market Disruption In the US, Westfield Specialty will continue to diversify its product offerings. Kuhn expects opportunities to emerge from disruption at this part of the market cycle.
“Some of it comes down to finishing off some of the product offerings and some of the business units that we have,” he said. Kuhn said Westfield Specialty had “a keen interest” in developing a sizable miscellaneous professional liability portfolio because of its attractive margins. " The company established its international operations in 2022 with the acquisition of Argo’s Lloyd’s syndicate. But it has also grown through renewal rights deals including for Argo’s US specialty property business in 2022, a portion of Intact’s financial institutions book in 2024, some of Argo’s admitted retail business in 2025 and Doxa’s Arris Property Underwriters program this year.
Discussing market conditions, Kuhn said he was closely watching property market conditions after significant rate reductions, while in casualty loss trends may be outpacing rate trends in some subsets. Kuhn said there had not been a major shift away from limits management in casualty. He was hopeful carriers would not lose discipline in that regard, pointing to greater resolve from reinsurers and direct writers than in the past. But he added: “I can't sit here and say that I firmly believe that people have seen the errors of doing that in the past, because we always seem as an industry not to learn from our mistakes in the past and we seem to repeat them occasionally.
”