By Chris Munro

May 2 - (The Insurer) - Markel plans to “double down” on its commitment to the U.S. wholesale and specialty sector in response to what Markel Insurance CEO Simon Wilson said is a “structural shift” of business moving to the E&S channel.

This publication reported in April that Markel had split its U.S. and Bermuda operations – a unit formerly known as Markel Specialty – into a wholesale and specialty segment, and a separate programs and solutions segment.

Markel’s newly minted U.S. wholesale and specialty segment will be responsible for all U.S. specialty insurance business that flows through its core wholesale and retail channels.

The unit is led by Wendy Houser, who has been at Markel for 16 years, as president, U.S. wholesale and specialty.

On a call with analysts to discuss the company’s Q1 2025 earnings, Markel Insurance CEO Wilson said the business was “going to double down our commitment to the U.S. wholesale and specialty market”.

As Wilson noted, the compound annual growth rate of just the E&S element of the wholesale and specialty market over the past five or six years has been 20%.

“Now sometimes, that's a soft market, hard market thing. So in a hard market, business shifts into E&S.

“My view is that there is a structural move now within the U.S. marketplace of a move towards the excess and surplus line space,” said Wilson.

The executive said his thinking behind that is customers have become much more demanding in what they want from the wordings and solutions provided by insurers.

“They don't want the vanilla solutions quite so much these days.

“They do want a specialty offering which is tailored towards their needs, and that's typically when you go into the E&S market.”

Wilson said Markel has seen “significant growth” in that segment, along with a “build-up in demand” for the products being sold through it, and the company is now looking to expand its presence in the sector.

He also highlighted the increasingly prominent role the big three wholesale brokers of Amwins, Ryan Specialty and CRC are playing in the U.S. insurance market.

“Business is gravitating towards them and they're putting more and more investment into that space,” Wilson noted.

“I just feel that there is a structural shift and tailwinds within that E&S space and the wholesale and specialty market in the U.S.,” he added.