Vantage Group Holdings Ltd, a member of Bermuda’s Class of 2020 re/insurers, has continued the buildout of its insurance platform with the introduction of new product offerings in healthcare and excess casualty.

Vantage was established late last year and began writing reinsurance risk on January 1 through its Bermuda Class 4 company, Vantage Risk Ltd. The Bermuda carrier has since expanded its offering to include select insurance products.

In the US, Vantage launched a US surplus lines carrier, Vantage Risk Specialty Insurance Company, enabling certain US risks to be written on A- (Excellent)/Financial Size Category XII AM Best rated paper.

Commenting on the launch of these businesses, Greg Hendrick, chief executive officer, said: “The depth of experience of our healthcare and excess casualty teams, and their longstanding industry relationships are highly valuable as we build out the Vantage product offering in our first year of operations. I am appreciative of the energy and enthusiasm of these teams to bring their best risk insights and solutions for our clients.”

Denise Watkins joined Vantage in June and heads the excess casualty and healthcare insurance business in Bermuda. She brings more than 23 years of US and Bermuda underwriting experience, most recently as senior vice president of excess casualty and healthcare at Sompo International in Bermuda.

Ms Watkins has assembled an experienced underwriting team at Vantage, including Cherie Edwards and Samantha Mohs. Collectively, her team has extensive US and Bermuda excess casualty and healthcare liability lead and excess lines experience.

Vantage said the Bermuda team is focused on providing customised solutions and maintains a commitment to responsiveness. They work with wholesale distribution partners to provide insurance and captive reinsurance on occurrence, claims made and integrated occurrence policy forms, as well as punitive damages and punitive damage wrap coverage.

The company said their excess casualty portfolio will target classes of business including transportation, construction, consumer products, real estate, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and chemical. In healthcare liability their clients are primarily hospital systems and facilities, including academic medical facilities, specialty medical centers and managed care facilities.

Ray Pernsteiner joined Vantage in March and leads the US healthcare team. The company said Mr Pernsteiner has worked in the insurance industry since 1988, focused solely on medical professional liability for all client segments. He most recently held various key leadership positions at Arch Insurance Group for more than 18 years.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, and holds RPLU, CPCU and ARe designations.

Since March, the company said, Mr Pernsteiner has assembled a team of healthcare specialists, with Anna Rockers, Dmitry Burtman and Nick Williams leading as regional vice presidents of Central and Western, Southeast, and Northeast regions respectively. Additionally, with more than 20 years of experience, Amy Berg joins the team to provide business management support.

Vantage said its US healthcare underwriters leverage an experienced team of claims and actuarial resources to craft responsive insurance liability coverage for complex risks needing specialisation. Coverage is provided for both insurance and reinsurance of captives for healthcare excess liability. Clients span the spectrum from health systems, integrated delivery networks, to excess physicians and miscellaneous facility-type based risks.

The company said delivery of healthcare continues to evolve because of rapid changes in advancement of medicine and medical technology. As a result, there is a growing number of miscellaneous medical facilities in the healthcare arena. The US healthcare team at Vantage is targeting this growth and is focused on specialised coverages tailored for this sector.

Those include primary and excess professional liability, general liability, and umbrella coverages, with a broad appetite across class segments. They consider business across a wide range of classes of middle market-type accounts, distributed primarily through wholesale distribution channels. Umbrella excess of self-insured retention healthcare professional liability and retail placements of US healthcare systems products are expected to be offered starting in October.

Mr Hendrick added: “At a time when risk is gaining complexity and the need for excess casualty and healthcare capacity is increasing, the ability for Vantage to offer up to $15 million of excess capacity in these lines of business has been a welcome increase in market capacity. Denise and Ray are important additions to the Vantage Insurance leadership team, and I look forward to seeing their businesses develop further in the months and years ahead.”

Vantage launched last December with $1 billion of private-equity backing.

Global investment firms The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman are lead investors.