The launch of a new Lloyd’s start-up has been held up after the company was forced to revise its business model, Insurance Times has learned.
Leinster Syndicate 4882 was due to begin operations in April, but it is understood to have failed to gain necessary Lloyd’s approval in time.
According to a senior Lloyd’s source, the syndicate now has until the beginning of July to resubmit its application.
Syndicate 4882 had proposed to underwrite a mix of predominantly short tail specialty business with a direct and facultative US property book focusing on Fortune-1000 companies.
The source said: “[Leinster] has had to reduce the scale of its business. The syndicate is not writing as much catastrophe exposed business as before. Reinsurance-to-close is now an integral part of the business model, where before it was just bolted on to the side.”
The mid-year start-up syndicate, which will have an initial capacity of £180m rising to £254m for 2008, is being set up by Adrian Ryan, chairman of Leinster Group, who, together with John Charman, left Ace in 2001 to establish Axis Capital Holdings.
Former Liberty Syndicate bosses, Sean Dalton and Andrew Elliot, will head up the new syndicate with Dalton becoming chief executive of the specialty lines business and Elliot acting as active underwriter.
The launch of Syndicate 4882 is subject to both Lloyd’s approval and successful capital raising. It is understood that capital backing of £50m has been secured from third party investors despite the delay.
Leinster was unavailable for comment.
