Three Lloyd’s insurers have joined forces to form a Political Risk Consortium in Asia, offering increased capacity for a wide range of political and contract frustration risks.

Beazley, Chaucer and Talbot will work collectively to provide large scale capacity of up to $130 million for individual risks, with a policy period of up to seven years, through the new Lloyd’s consortium based in its Singapore hub.

Key risks covered by political risk policies include government intervention, confiscation and physical damage due to war, currency inconvertibility and contract frustration related to defaults, and non-payment by sovereign entities, said the companies in a joint statement.

Singapore is the largest Lloyd’s market hub outside of London with gross written premiums of $680 million in 2015, said the statement.

“The new Political Risk Consortium at Lloyd’s Asia allows local companies to protect themselves against risks related to larger investments in potentially unstable geographies, backed by the collective expertise of three leading Lloyd’s syndicates,” said Michael Lum, political risks and trade credit underwriter at Beazley in Singapore.

“Beazley’s Singapore office has been steadily growing along with Lloyd’s overall business in the region and the increased capacity of the consortium will increase the ability of Asia Pacific companies to cover these risks locally,” he said.

“Our brokers and clients told us they needed help solving the problems associated with transacting business in emerging markets,” commented Margaret To, CEO of Chaucer Singapore. “We took this on board, and have responded to the challenge by establishing the new Political Risk Consortium.”

“Talbot is delighted to work with Beazley and Chaucer to bring this new Political Risk Consortium to Lloyd’s Asia,” said Jaime Taylor, political risks and trade credit underwriter at Talbot Risk Services Pte Ltd. in Singapore.

“We expanded our global footprint into Singapore in 2007 and have since worked diligently to meet the needs of our clients here,” he continued.

Source: Beazley, Chaucer & Talbot