Dinos Iordanou and Greg Hendrick are to head up a new insurer and reinsurer called Vantage, trade publications are reporting.

Mr Iordanou, former chairman and chief executive officer of Arch Capital Group, will be Vantage’s non-executive chairman, while Mr Hendrick, the former CEO of Axa XL, will be the new group’s CEO.

Reports on the new venture by The Insurer and the Reinsurance News website do not specify where it will be headquartered.

A new company called Vantage Group Holdings Ltd was incorporated as an exempted holding company on July 28 this year, files at the Registrar of Companies show.

However, the Bermuda Monetary Authority lists no licensed insurance entities under the name of Vantage.

The new re/insurer’s capital is coming from private-equity firms Hellman & Friedman and The Carlyle Group, according to the reports.

With reinsurance prices rising, many Bermudian reinsurers have been raising capital to capitalise, including RenaissanceRe, Arch Capital, Hiscox, Fidelis and Lancashire Group.

Several start-ups are in the pipeline. Lloyd’s of London insurers Chaucer and Ark have each applied to the BMA to set up new Class 4 reinsurance companies on the island.

Arcadian Risk Capital, a managing general agent, has also launched a new underwriting operation on the island. The Royal Gazette understands that Arcadian has lured a team of underwriters from Markel Bermuda.

The hard market is being driven by several factors including heavy catastrophe loses over the past three years, loss creep from past years leaving capital trapped in insurance-linked securities, and rising casualty insurance rates partly in response to higher awards by US courts in civil cases.

A busy 2020 hurricane season and several destructive wildfires in the western US are adding to the pricing momentum, as well as uncertainty over the extent of losses related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The reports on Vantage suggest it will have an ILS component to the business. Chris McKeown, the former CEO of ILS asset manager New Ocean Capital Management, will lead reinsurance, risk and innovation at Vantage.

Nick Pritchard, previously of Neon, will lead Vantage’s property-catastrophe reinsurance operation.

Aurora Swithenbank, formerly a partner and head of insurance in the Americas Financing Group at Goldman Sachs, will serve as chief financial officer of Vantage.