Vantage Group Holdings Ltd, one of Bermuda’s Class of 2020 re/insurers, has introduced new product offerings in financial lines and professional liability insurance.

The moves continue the buildout of Vantage’s insurance platform.

The company 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 United States, 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 progress made to date, chief executive officer Greg Hendrick said: “We are very pleased with the quality of the insurance businesses launched in the second and third quarters of 2021.”

Mr Hendrick, who was among the private sector leaders who participated in closed session, cybersecurity discussions at the White House on Wednesday with US president Joe Biden, added: “I am excited to highlight some of the insurance leaders at Vantage who lend a great depth of experience, longstanding industry relationships and bold commitment to Vantage’s ambition to build a specialty re/insurance business that sees risk differently.”

The company said Leona Lik joined Vantage in April and heads the financial and professional lines business in Bermuda.

Vantage said she has more than 20 years of insurance, brokerage and consulting experience. Most recently she progressed through senior-level roles in Aon’s Financial Services Group across Bermuda, New York and London platforms, culminating as broking and strategy leader.

Ms Lik earned a Bachelor of Science degree in international business and marketing with a minor in sociology from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

At Vantage, the company said, she has recruited an experienced Bermuda underwriting team to grow the Bermuda book of financial and professional lines business, focusing on writing all industry classes across management liability, financial institutions and professional services.

Vantage said product lines will include D&O, Side-A DIC, EPL, wage & hour, E&O, blended, fiduciary, GPL, and professional indemnity, all providing excess capacity.

Bhuma Patel also joined Vantage in April to head the Financial Institutions business in the US. She has almost 20 years of financial institutions professional liability underwriting experience, most recently at CAN, where she led the Eastern region of the financial institutions team.

Ms Patel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and a Master’s degree in business administration from New York University.

Vantage said Ms Patel has assembled a team of proven leaders with decades of direct financial lines underwriting experience, including Cara Sweeney, Nick Steiner and Rima Pattanam.

It said her team is focused on asset managers (including advisors, hedge funds and private equity firms), banks and insurance companies, providing capacity for excess attachments. They work with national wholesale and retail partners.

D&O, E&O, blended policies, GPL, EPL, fiduciary, Side-A and related lines are all products considered by the financial institutions team through tailored solutions and a streamlined excess policy form, the company said.

In July, Richard Wall joined Vantage as head of its US Management Liability business. Mr Wall has almost 25 years of D&O and professional liability underwriting experience, most recently at AXA XL, where he was regional head of professional liability underwriting, leading the West region and spearheading the group’s national life sciences D&O underwriting strategy, the company said.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance with a minor in management information/decision support systems from the University of Delaware.

While all classes of business will be considered, the company said Mr Wall is initially focused on writing excess publicly traded D&O risks (ABC and Side-A DIC) while actively recruiting a team of highly experienced client/broker-facing underwriters. Primary D&O and Lead Side-A DIC product releases on admitted paper are expected in 2022, the company said.

Mr Hendrick added: “The performance of these teams since their launch has been impressive, and the heads of these businesses add considerable value to our insurance leadership team.

“With up to $15 million of excess capacity we are excited to see their business plans fully implemented in the months ahead. We look forward to their unique risk management insights making a difference for Vantage clients.”

Vantage is a Class of 2020 company, formed in Bermuda to capitalise on rising insurance rates.

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

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