MARKEL PREPARES TO MAKE MOVE INTO BRAZIL’S PRIMARY MARKET

Markel Corporation is preparing a push into Brazil’s primary insurance market and has hired a former president of IRB Brasil Re to lead the project, Insurance Day has reported. The Richmond, Virginia-based group already operates in the Brazil market as a local reinsurer, but is now assessing opportunities to enter the primary market. Markel has hired Leonardo Paixão, who was the president of IRB Brasil Re between 2010 and 2015, and two more senior executives to canvass the market and to identify segments where the companies can achieve growth. However, no decision has been taken so far on which lines to write, the company said. “Since 2010 our Latin American team has been writing reinsurance business in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. On the back of this we have, for some time, been looking at the possibility of becoming involved in the primary market in Brazil, to write business in niche areas where Markel has specialist expertise but where we are not involved in reinsurance business,” Markel said. Markel closed the first half of 2016 with Real16m ($4.94m) in reinsurance premiums – which is more than five times the volume of premiums the company had in Brazil by June 2015, according to research by Brazilian reinsurer Terra Brasis. It is the second smallest among the country’s 16 local reinsurers, representing just 0.4% of the total market.