Canopius Group has launched its algorithmic underwriting platform, Vave, as an managing general agent.

Devised and developed in-house, the company said Vave began trading in May 2019, and has since quoted on more than 1.2 million risks, representing $2.2 billion of premium.

Canopius, a global specialty re/insurer with an operation in Bermuda, said Vave MGA is forecast to exceed $100 million premium by the end of the year, and, as a digital platform with diverse capital, Vave is positioned for rapid and sustained growth.

The MGA is led by Marek Shafer, Jamie Martin and Rob Porter.

With a growing US homeowners property and monoline flood portfolio, Vave will be launching a commercial property product later this year, the company said.

It added that Vave’s algorithmic pricing engine is connected via API to the largest brokers in the US surplus lines wholesale market, enabling them to quote and bind risks on an automated basis in seconds, and access products founded on vast amounts of data.

The platform is controlled by data-driven underwriting algorithms and, drawing on attributes from millions of lines of risk information, the team can validate the model and make improvements continually, Canopius said.

Mr Shafer said: “Vave’s vast potential was evident very early on and as an MGA it can access the capital required to really set it loose in terms of scale and sophistication.

“It is hyper efficient for brokers and, with greatly reduced frictional costs, highly effective from a capacity perspective.

“Vave is not a delegated authority play, in fact it is arguably the opposite as it is bringing the underwriting back to London.”

Mike Duffy, chief underwriting officer, Canopius said: “Vave is a fresh approach to insuring high-volume risk, bringing clarity and efficiency to risk portfolio management.

“Vave was created as this is exactly the kind of innovation Lloyd’s requires from the market. After three years of development and a highly successful year of trading, we believe Vave is the future of Lloyd’s.

“By reducing costs and improving data accuracy through its digital processes, Vave is already demonstrating some of the market’s key ambitions outlined in Blueprint Two.”

Blueprint Two details the Lloyd’s digital-led change and execution plan that it says will transform the way in which it operates.

Canopius is a global specialty re/insurer with underwriting operations in Bermuda, Australia, China, Singapore, the UK and US.

It underwrites through Lloyd’s Syndicate 4444, managed by Canopius Managing Agents Limited; a US surplus lines insurer, Canopius US Insurance, Inc; and Canopius Reinsurance Ltd, a Bermudian-based Class 4 reinsurer.