Hardy looks to expand after being acquired by CNA

Hardy is planning to use the financial firepower of its new parent to add new teams and lines of business in its main areas of expertise.

US insurer CNA completed its acquisition of Hardy on Monday evening following the receipt of a certificate of merger from the Bermuda registrar of companies.

The closure of the CNA deal closely followed the departure of two senior underwriters from Hardy as the Lloyd’s insurer looked to refocus its loss-making property-treaty reinsurance book on US business and away from the non-US business that caused the losses.

Property treaty head David Carson has left Hardy, as has Richard Lim, who headed the firm’s Singapore-based Asian operation, which wrote mainly non-US property treaty business. Their exits followed the departure of chief operating officer Ian Parker, whose position has been made redundant by the CNA takeover.

Hardy has also suspended underwriting at its Singapore operation while it finds someone to run it, and evaluates what business it should write.

Hardy’s property treaty business, which accounted for 35% of 2011 gross written premium, posted a 2011 combined ratio of 208.2%. The company also writes marine and aviation, non-marine property and specialty lines, all of which reported sub-100% combined ratios.

“All of the other business units have performed extremely well,” said Hardy chief executive Barbara Merry. “And we want to exploit the fact that we have got expertise here that is capable of being supported by the enormous resources that CNA has got.”

She added: “We will also be looking at new teams of people to bring in lines of business.”

Merry and the rest of the senior team will remain at Hardy. “CNA made it plain all along that they want to keep the Hardy team,” Merry said.