By operating as a managing general underwriter, SRS Altitude can access a larger pool of capacity and risk appetite compared to competitors that only have access to the appetite of a single carrier, Thomas Keist, chief commercial officer at SRS Altitude, told Captive Intelligence.

SRS announced the launch of SRS Altitude in November, with the MGU focusing on alternative risk transfer solutions, led by Loredana Mazzoleni Neglén as global CEO.

Captive Intelligence understands SRS will confirm the A-rated carriers it will be partnering with imminently.

Altitude began operating in the first quarter of 2024 with structured (re)insurance and parametric products at the centre of its offering.

It is focused on tailoring underwriting solutions to match clients’ needs when they cannot be appropriately addressed with conventional insurance.

“What differentiates Altitude in the market is that as an MGU we have more independence from the risk appetite and capabilities of a single (re)insurance carrier by being able to partner with multiple strategic carriers to enable higher agility and variety of risk appetite,” he said.

Keist said an MGU can act like a platform where various (re)insurance carriers who do not have the organisational possibilities or willingness to set up specialised teams can still access this business and integrate it as part of their offering to clients.

He added the decision to launch an MGU rather than exploring going into broking was made because this would have potentially jeopardised one of SRS’ key value propositions, which is independence, “and therefore access to business from brokers who are not part of the big three”.

“This independence is a key piece,” he said. “SRS Altitude is a more complementary addition because it’s different to the core service, but at the same time, it adds an important offering to captive clients.”

Young previously told Captive Intelligence that there’s a ‘’vacuum of expertise’’ in the market, so it made sense to fill that vacuum for clients with the launch of Altitude.

“More and more of our clients are facing risks that the standard insurance market cannot solve and there’s certain things we can do with a captive and partnering with carriers that have an appetite for these highly structured programmes seems to make sense,” he said.

Keist noted that there has been structural growth in the alternative risk transfer market since the beginning of the hard market.

“It’s not like we have just had a hard market and now there’s alternative risk transfer,” he said.

“The whole change is more structural because many of the corporates who have come into the hard market have started to realise that a different retention management will be much more sustainable for the longer term, and forming a captive to manage a corporate’s retention is a prime option to go for.”