Chartis speaks out over public sector withdrawal

Chartis UK has been offloading its UK public sector risks due to tough underwriting conditions.

The insurer has been working with AJ Gallagher and its subsidiary Risk Management Partners (RMP) to transfer the business to alternative underwriters.

Its involvement will be limited to providing run-off administrative and claims handling services.

Insurance Times understands that the transfer could potentially involve staff moving from Chartis to the other insurers involved.

This follows QBE Europe’s announcement earlier today that it has agreed a deal to underwrite RMP’s public sector business from 1 July.

A Chartis spokesperson said: “Underwriting conditions for public sector risks have remained challenging over several years, especially in the liability lines where we have seen a combination of increasingly adverse claims and prolonged soft market conditions.

“As part of our disciplined underwriting and risk selection strategy we decided that, unless we could secure adequate and sustainable terms we would have to take the tough decision and withdraw from underwriting UK public sector risks for the time being. Despite extensive discussions, it was not possible to achieve this goal so we took the decision to withdraw from this specific sector at this time.

“We realise our withdrawal is potentially disruptive for clients and have worked with Risk Management Partners and AJ Gallagher to support their discussions to find new underwriting capacity and manage the transfer.

“This decision is specific to the public sector and does not impact our appetite for large and complex liability risks in other sectors.”