UK-based Canopius Group has launched its algorithmic underwriting platform Vave as a managing general agent (MGA).
Vave, which has been developed in-house, began trading in May 2019 and has since quoted on over 1.2 million risks, representing $2.2bn of premium.
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Canopius expects Vave MGA to exceed $100m premium by the end of the year.
Vave’s algorithmic pricing engine is connected via API to the brokers in the US surplus lines wholesale market.
It enables Vave to quote and bind risks automatically and access products founded on vast amounts of data.
The platform is controlled by data-driven underwriting algorithms and draws on attributes from millions of lines of risk information.
Canopius chief underwriting officer Mike Duffy 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.
“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.”
Marek Shafer, Jamie Martin and Rob Porter will be spearheading the MGA.
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.”
In December 2020, Canopius joined forces with AI-enabled insurance pricing insurtech Akur8.
Leveraging automating risk-modelling and a transparent artificial intelligence proprietary technology, Akur8’s solution improves insurers’ pricing processes.
