Achp : Pro’s 25th Anniversary – Client Update

31 | May | 2018

This key milestone is an opportunity for us to look back at some of our remarkable achievements

Dear Friends,
This month we celebrate Pro's 25th Anniversary and I would like to thank you all for your continuing support. This key milestone is an opportunity for me to look back at some of the remarkable achievements Pro has delivered to our clients, but it's also a time to look ahead and reveal how Pro will continue to support our clients' businesses in future.
Looking Back
The year was 1993, we didn't have computers at our desks, mobile phones were the size of a brick and telex machines were the latest in technology!

There was turmoil in the world of insurance. Claims from long-term exposure to asbestos were starting to hurt and the impact of Hurricane Andrew was still being felt by many of the large carriers.

One of the major companies to fall was English and American Underwriting Agency Group (E&A). It went into run-off in 1993 and immediately a new company was formed to manage the legacy claims, this company was Pro.

Pro continued to run-off the E&A pools, but there was a sense that we could provide a similar service to other companies. In 1997 we started to manage the run-off for Willis Faber Underwriting Management (WFUM). To give a sense of scale, WFUM had $2 billion in inwards liabilities and $1 billion of reinsurance assets. The project was so complicated and we were so successful that it established Pro as the leader in run-off management. Indeed, we laid new ground in unwinding complex multi-party financial arrangements and in interactive relationships with policyholders.

The next stage in our development was to offer value-adding services to the live market, including outsourcing and consulting services. Our first live-market client was Faraday in 2005 and in fact they are still a client today.

A recent project the Pro team is most proud of is one of the largest EL and PL legacy outsourcing deals to date. In 2016, we were asked to process millions of complex legacy Employer's and Public Liability policies on behalf of Aviva and its reinsurer Swiss Re. It was a challenge on a grand scale, migrating ten million policies and claims from an array of old systems, while opening a brand-new office filled with claims handlers and administration staff. The project went live in under 18 months and continues to deliver outstanding results for both of our clients.
2018: A Year of Success
By 2018 we have grown to over 500 employees around the world, but still try to maintain a very personal touch, living by the 'Client First' principle. Much of this growth has come from a new venture in Germany and expansion in North America.

Our Cologne team was recently involved in a highly complex German medical malpractice portfolio, and, as far as we know, it's the largest Continental European run-off project to date. In under three months we built a team of claims handlers with a deep understanding of medical malpractice and brought together several technicians to digitise and migrate over 4000 paper files into our new modern claims platform. Today, the team have consolidated and streamlined what was a highly complex paper-based process, while simultaneously improving portfolio performance and reducing costs.

Over in the United States, our client list has increased tenfold since we opened eight years ago. I'm pleased to see how Pro US has grown from a standing start of a single run-off client, to now include underwriting, outsourcing, consulting, and audit support services. A key client in the US recently underwent a large-scale merger, which resulted in duplicate financial processes, Pro combined its consulting and outsourcing expertise to successfully re-engineer the process and support it with Pro accountants. The result was dramatically reduced backlogs and improved turnaround times.
The Next Evolution
Our latest project will launch the next generation of Exposure Management technology to the market. Developed by leading experts in both catastrophe modelling and artificial intelligence, the service will plug into existing platforms, automating and removing current manual processes. This cutting-edge tool will rapidly deliver structured data for risk pricing, exposure management and loss modelling, directly to the underwriter's desktop. It's an example of Pro combining technical expertise and insurance know-how to help clients grow and become more profitable.

Last year, we were pleased to announce ProTucket Insurance Company had become the first Rhode Island domestic insurer to provide run-off portfolio transfer solutions. This ground-breaking move was made possible under new state legislation, Rhode Island's Regulation 68, which enables portfolios to be transferred, in a similar fashion to a Part VII in the UK. Pro continues to work very hard to establish the process, but being first can often present complex challenges, and introducing a new concept, albeit proven in Europe, into a complex regulatory landscape takes time. We expect to be able to announce some exciting news shortly.
As we mark our 25th year in London and across the world, I would like to again thank you all for your support. Across our UK, US, German, Swiss and Latin American offices everyone is working hard towards our 'Client First' strategy. The heart of our success has been the dedication to our clients, many who have been with us for decades and have contributed to our growth through referrals, the best form of endorsement we could ever ask for
Here's to another successful 25 years of working together.

Artur Niemczewski
CEO, Pro