This special edition of Summit Perspectives provides an in-depth explanation of the new Summit Re partnership with Zurich American Insurance Company for catastrophic medical excess of loss business across all product lines.
Summit Re is pleased to announce that we have been appointed as a reinsurance intermediary manager (RIM) for Zurich American Insurance Company, effective July 1, 2015. With more than 100 years of experience in the US and strong industry ratings, the financial strength and stability Zurich brings to the table ranks the company among the industry’s leaders. In addition, Zurich management holds extensive expertise working with carriers and managing general underwriters and their strong relationships and service capabilities strategically complement our own. With Zurich, we’ve got more horsepower to get things done for our clients.
With a large “strike zone” in terms of openness to new ideas and concepts in the dramatically changing healthcare market, the Zurich underwriting model gives us expanded authority and then lets us do what we do best. The company also has a large team in strong support of deals utilizing front carriers and captive arrangements with reinsurance administration. This includes traditional reinsurance structures as well as alternative deal structures for those entities desiring to take significant risk themselves.
Another strong point of interest for Summit Re is that Zurich has many in-force clients in the healthcare space purchasing a variety of property and casualty coverages. These include medical malpractice, general and commercial liability, and directors and officers errors and omissions covers. Healthcare reform is fueling their growth, in many cases, and Zurich wanted to make sure they had an integrated product and service strategy for their client base. Zurich acknowledges our expertise, relationships and strong service capabilities and has appointed Summit Re as the exclusive MGU for their managed care excess product portfolio, while we correspondingly acknowledge their strong, complementary franchise.
Mark Troutman, President of Summit Re states, “We also were pleased by the strong rating and capital position of the Zurich franchise which is already a market leader.” Brian Fehlhaber, Vice President – Sales and Marketing, speaks to the impact on our clients, “It is our intent to work together with the client and Zurich to make the transition seamless and allow them to continue with the coverage and service that have worked so well for them historically.”
Julie Bobak, Senior Vice President – Zurich American, summed it up as follows, “Our relationship with Summit Re will allow us to provide healthcare customers with solutions geared to their needs.”
Ed Tyburski , Senior Vice President – Zurich American, added, “We are very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with one of the premier companies in the catastrophic medical excess market, one which has a demonstrated track record of profitable growth over its fifteen-year history.”
The Summit Re reputation of putting together dynamic solutions that accomplish each client’s specific goals for management healthcare risk will become even stronger. With Zurich on our team, we have more resources to embrace innovative deal structures that will move our clients forward. From full reinsurance to fronting and captive arrangements that allow clients to retain varying amounts of risk, the Summit Re – Zurich team offers a complete spectrum of product and service capabilities.