Boutique brokerage McGill and Partners has offices worldwide, but cannot become the “go-to” place for complex risk without a presence in Bermuda.

This is the view of Kate Vacher, McGill and Partners Bermuda’s chief executive since the company incorporated here in October 2021.

“We want to put sophisticated buyers and sophisticated sellers on two sides of a trade to get the best result for our clients,” Ms Vacher said. “Over the last 30 years, Bermuda has become equal to the London market if not further ahead with complex risk. To achieve our goal, we have to be in Bermuda.”

She said direct access to the Bermudian market helps to facilitate mutual success across all their offices and compounds the firm’s significant growth.

After running the Bermuda base by herself all this time, she is pleased that they are now expanding.

“We are now up to four staff members,” she said.

This week, Peter Stubbings became a partner at McGill and Partners Bermuda.

He was previously CEO of Global Re Specialty at Aon, and before that chairman of Guy Carpenter.

“I am primarily here to build the business out,” Mr Stubbings said. “It is a challenging market environment at the moment. There are a lot of other brokers out there. The challenge is to prove we can differentiate from the competition.”

He said the reinsurance market in Bermuda is dynamic.

“It is a thriving marketplace now, for all lines of business,” Mr Stubbings said. “McGill is not just looking to develop on the capacity space, which has been the bedrock of the Bermuda market until the last five years. Now we are seeing so many companies and reinsurers on the island diversifying and looking at multiple lines of business. Our ultimate aim is to look at how we develop into other speciality lines of business over the coming years.”

Steve McGill, the founder and CEO of McGill and Partners, said it was fantastic to see their Bermuda operation growing.

“We appreciate that the local Bermudian market is likely to have local brokers and our approach enables access to other markets and the support of our other global teams,” he said. “We are also known for having a hugely successful talent acquisition strategy and as part of this we’re committed to hiring the very best in local Bermudian staff.”

Mr McGill said the firm has rapidly built a “stellar” global reputation and continually looks at how it can do things differently and better.

“I’m looking forward to being part of this impressive growth story in Bermuda, a market that holds a key position in the global insurance and reinsurance industry,” he said.

McGill and Partners Bermuda advertises itself as “digital first” because, it says, it is not building its technology on legacy systems.

Mr Stubbings said larger, more established firms often struggle to integrate new technology with old, but because McGill and Partners Bermuda is a new company, it does not have that problem.

“We are starting on a fresh page,” he said.

This facilitates communication and makes the wheels turn more smoothly.

Ms Vacher said that so far her firm’s story has been a successful one.

“We have great momentum and now it is just about keeping that going and making sure we can bring a lot of business to the island,” she said.