Neon to close Bermuda platform

Neon will cease writing all property treaty reinsurance from January 1, 2020 and will centralise all property insurance underwriting through its London platform, meaning its Bermuda platform will close.

In a statement, Neon blamed “the significant hardening of retro pricing exceeding the pricing expectations of the inwards reinsurance business” for its decision. “To keep within the constraints of our risk appetite we, along with our parent, AFG, do not believe that the property treaty class of business can provide a sustainable and appropriate risk/reward balance for Neon,” it explained.

Neon said it was incredibly proud of the traction and commitment to service that its property reinsurance underwriters in both London and Bermuda have brought in the last three years. “Whilst we had suffered some significant catastrophe losses in these books of business in 2017 and 2018, they were within our reinsurance/retro programme and below a number of our market peers,” it said.

Neon said it had not taken the decision lightly, but promised to refocus on its global property and property binders business in London. “AFG remains open to new opportunities and the identification of new classes of profitable business,” the statement added.

Personnel in Bermuda and London will be impacted, although the details have not been finalised.