AM Best Affirms Performance Assessment of Castel Underwriting Agencies Limited and Castel Underwriting Europe B.V.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AM Best has affirmed the Performance Assessment (assessment) of PA-2 (Excellent) of Castel Underwriting Agencies Limited (Castel) (United Kingdom) and its subsidiary, Castel Underwriting Europe B.V. (CUE) (Netherlands). The outlook of the assessment is stable.

The assessment reflects Castel’s excellent underwriting capabilities, excellent governance and internal controls, excellent financial condition, excellent organisational talent and excellent depth and breadth of relationships.

Castel, through its model of investing in early-stage managing general agents (MGAs) and underwriting teams (collectively “underwriting cells”) on its club-style MGA platform, has access to expert and experienced underwriters. Underwriting capabilities further benefit from Castel’s in-house underwriting staff. Since launching in 2014, Castel has demonstrated its ability to grow its underwriting cells whilst providing profitable business to its capacity providers. A partially offsetting factor to the component is the limited track record of some of Castel’s programmes.

Castel’s governance and internal controls benefit from its scale, relative to many other delegated underwriting authority enterprises (DUAEs) in the market. The company has an appropriate committee structure, including a board of directors featuring independent and non-executive directors, supported by a number of other committees. The company undergoes external reviews and performs internal reviews regularly, covering underwriting and compliance. Whilst relatively commonplace in the U.K., Castel’s limited integration of systems with (re)insurance partners is considered a partially offsetting factor to the governance and internal controls component.

Castel’s financial position is supported by its consistently profitable operations since inception. Overall earnings benefit from the broad range of programmes underwritten by the company, reducing dependence on any single one. The acquisitive nature of Castel’s business model is expected to lead to variable financial resource requirements over time; however, AM Best expects this to be well-managed by the company to avoid undue strain on Castel’s financial condition. Castel’s ownership by Arch Capital Group Ltd. is considered a positive to the company’s financial condition and provides a potential avenue for additional financial resources.

Castel’s senior management team is experienced and has a proven track record in the industry. The company’s board of directors brings further experience and oversight. The organisational structure is well-defined with a clear path of reporting duties.

Castel offers a range of programmes in its core markets in the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as internationally. The company has relationships with a high number of well-rated capacity providers. A significant portion of Castel’s processed premium is placed with capacity providers that have supported Castel for at least four years.

As a wholly owned subsidiary, CUE’s operations exhibit a number of commonalities with Castel. CUE is regarded as strategically and financially important as the group’s European platform, providing access to business in the European Economic Area. CUE is integrated with Castel and has common underwriting practices, with generally consistent underwriting performance expected.

This press release relates to Performance Assessments that have been published on AM Best’s website. For all information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the Performance Assessments referenced in this release, please see AM Best’s website. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Performance Assessments, please view Guide to Best’s Performance Assessments for Delegated Underwriting Authority Enterprises. For information on the proper use of Best’s Credit Ratings, Best’s Performance Assessments, Best’s Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best’s Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

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