LSM dominates London underwriter rankings for aviation and space

Liberty Specialty Markets’ Bill Halligan has topped the aviation and space category in the Gracechurch London’s Leading Underwriters ranking for the second successive year.

Halligan was part of a clean sweep of the top three underwriter places for Liberty Specialty Markets, finishing ahead of Meghan Walker and Daniel Fulco in second and third respectively.

This marked the first time any carrier had achieved the top three places in an individual business class in the survey since Beazley did so for marine in 2014.

Axa XL’s Mark Stanley and Convex’s Paul Maguire complete the top five. These two companies round out the top three for “bench strength” with the largest cumulative number of underwriter nominations.

For war and geopolitical risk, Tokio Marine HCC’s Jerome Swinscoe has been ranked as London’s leading underwriter, retaining his title ahead of new entry Roddy Barnett. 

Barnett is one of two Beazley underwriters to place in the top five, alongside Richard Young who ranked fourth.

This helped Beazley finish top for “bench strength” in the class, ahead of Liberty, Hiscox, Axis and Chaucer. 

As previously reported, Faraday’s Nick West topped this year’s ranking across all classes, ending MAP active underwriter Richard Trubshaw’s six-year run as London’s leading underwriter.

West also topped the ranking for the property class, while Trubshaw retained his position at the top of the reinsurance class rankings for a fourth consecutive year.

London’s Leading Underwriters 2022: how the results are calculated

The London’s Leading Underwriters ranking is based on nominations gathered by Gracechurch’s surveys of London market brokers and underwriters.

The surveys are conducted according to Market Research Society professional guidelines through confidential online and telephone interviews.

This year’s ranking is based on data collected between January 2021 and February 2022 which generated more than 1,300 underwriter nominations.

Underwriters are ranked according to the number of mentions within a particular business class, based on the extent to which they are respected for being market leaders.

Nominators are asked to select any underwriter, regardless of seniority. Underwriter names are not prompted so that respondents can freely name any underwriters from any London market insurer, other than their own.

The longlist of underwriters who have been nominated and the lines of business in which they operate is then validated by their employers. For the 2022 ranking, more than 70 percent of underwriters nominated were validated by their business leaders. 

The initial findings were presented at a London event held last week by Gracechurch sister company Insurindex, in partnership with The Insurer. 

Details on how to receive the full report are available on the Insurindex website here.