New leaders emerge in fine art and specie as Arch’s Bauckham again tops war ranking

The Hartford overtook Ark to lead the fine art and specie underwriting bench strength table in the London’s Leading Underwriter survey for 2024, with the individual ranking resulting in a tie between Abigail Price and Steve Douglas from the respective carriers.

Ark was tied as runner-up in the bench strength ranking with Hiscox, Hamilton, QBE and Liberty Specialty Markets.

Grachchurch noted that of these top six, only Hiscox and Liberty Specialty Markets are new entrants; there has not been much movement in line of business over 2024, as fine art and specie business is generally more concentrated on continuity than change.

In the individual underwriter ranking, Hamilton’s head of fine art and specie Richard Northcott rose two places to gain third, with QBE’s Ryan Joseph close behind.

Arch dominates individual war underwriters, but Chaucer takes bench strength

Long-time leading nominee Andrew Bauckham of Arch led this year’s war and geopolitical risk individual underwriter ranking, although the bench strength leader was Chaucer, which placed runner-up last year after winning bench leader in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Bench strength runner-up Axis also moved up one position from the prior year survey, with Hiscox third and Arch, MS Amlin, Talbot and Chubb rounding out the table.

Bauckham was followed in the individual ranking by MS Amlin’s Guillaume Watkins and Chaucer’s Craig Curtiss in second and third respectively, with Chaucer’s Neil Edwards and Harriet Sharp also featuring in the shortlist.

To register to receive the full report when it is published next week, click here. The Insurer is media partner for the annual nomination-based survey – conducted by Gracechurch and presented by Insurindex – alongside Slipcase as digital content partner. Slipcase distributes a curated selection of content to the world’s (re)insurance industry professionals and businesses.