Announcements about Bermuda companies released this morning reveal two players going in different directions, with Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited strengthening its U.S. insurance operations and RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. selling out of its U.S insurance business.

QBE today disclosed that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of the U.S. admitted insurance businesses of RenaissanceRe, which include a U.S. crop and small specialist program insurance business for $275 million.

RenRe CEO Neill Currie explained the reasoning behind the deal at several recent investor conferences and in a phone interview with NU on Friday.

“Our forte is underwriting complex risk—solving complex problems for clients in a high-touch environment, low-frequency/high-severity environment,” he told NU, also noting that scale, rather than underwriting expertise is becoming a decisive factor to maximize profitability in the crop insurance business.

At the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Investor conference last month, he noted that RenRe’s specialty program business had gotten quite small during the soft market. “We either had to get big or sell it,” he said.

“I really like the company the way we are after having sold the U.S. insurance operation. It makes us a more nimble company,” he said.

(Details of NU’s interview with Mr. Currie will be published in the March 14 edition of the print magazine.)

Aspen, meanwhile, announced that it has appointed Mario P. Vitale, a 34-year veteran of the industry, to serve as president of its U.S. Insurance division.

“Building a strong U.S. insurance franchise is a core component of our strategy,” said Chris O’Kane, Aspen’s chief executive officer, in a statement.

“In the last 12 months we have put a number of important building blocks in place in the United States with the acquisition of an admitted shell company, the appointment of a number of specialist underwriting teams, and the development of a robust infrastructure with the addition of operational, actuarial, claims and legal expertise on the ground,” he said.

Mr. Vitale joins Aspen from Zurich Financial Services where he was CEO, Global Corporate, with responsibility for all Zurich’s corporate business globally, and a member of the Zurich Group Management Board.

As president of Aspen U.S. Insurance he will be a member of the Aspen Group Executive Committee and will report to John Cavoores, who was appointed co-CEO of Aspen Insurance in October 2010 and has executive oversight for Aspen’s U.S. insurance operations.

Mr. Vitale will assume his Aspen position on March 21 and will be based in New York.

Mr. Cavoores praised Mr. Vitale’s unrelenting focus on underwriting excellence and his “solutions-based mindset for clients and brokers.”

“This approach very much echoes our core beliefs and how we conduct our business at Aspen,” he said.

Prior to joining Zurich in 2006, Mr. Vitale served for six years with global broker Willis Group Holdings and for four years as CEO of Willis North America.

Mr. O’Kane said, “While I am deeply conscious of the current challenging market environment,” I believe that Mario and John will enable us to realize our aim of developing a meaningful franchise in the United States.”

Special Reports /

RenRe Completes U.S. Insurance Sale; Aspen Tags Vitale To Head U.S. Ops

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