Bamboo Ide8 Insurance Services, LLC., part of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., has announced a new multi-year transaction that expands the Greenshoots Re Ltd. collateralized reinsurance sidecar vehicle to cover an E&S program jointly launched with specialty insurer Accredited.
Now, Greenshoots Re has been utilised to provide reinsurance to another E&S property program, but this time it is for business written by Bamboo for insurer Accredited, it appears.
No size has been given for this second Greenshoots Re sidecar transaction, but Bamboo said today that it provides some of the reinsurance program supporting the launch of its new E&S Signature program.
It’s a multi-year sidecar arrangement, the announcement states, which means the capital market investor support has been locked in over a longer-term than many traditional reinsurance arrangements allow for.
John Chu, CEO of Bamboo, commented on the news, “Greenshoots Re was first used to bring complementary capital markets capacity to another program’s traditional reinsurance panel earlier this year. However, our broader goal was to create a flexible, long term strategic capital vehicle providing incremental capacity access for both new and existing programs.
“The Accredited transaction is validation of this thesis, and we appreciate their support and recognition of this capability as we jointly launch E&S Signature and Texas. Greenshoots Re is a clear strategic differentiator for us, providing turn-key capital markets access and looking ahead we see numerous applications to expand its use.”
GC Securities acted as the sole structuring agent and sole placement agent for this Greenshoots Re sidecar arrangement, while Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as deal counsel.
Liam Martens, Managing Director of GC Securities, commented, “We’re proud to have supported Bamboo on another sidecar issuance. We continue to see healthy investor interest in Bamboo’s underwriting platform and the Greenshoots Re franchise.
“We believe the Greenshoots Re franchise is unique insofar that it is the first MGA sponsored sidecar vehicle to have faced multiple unaffiliated cedants and will look to further extend its use in providing meaningful fully collateralized reinsurance support for additional Bamboo programs in the near future.”
It is notable to see a sidecar being used to support multiple cedants and it reflects an expanding appetite to source efficient reinsurance from the institutional capital markets.
With the reinsurance sidecar market having expanded meaningfully over the last year, it seems there is plenty of room for innovative companies to look to these structures to bring complementary reinsurance capital to their underwriting programs in an efficient manner.
It’s also worth noting that back in 2024, White Mountains committed up to $30 million in capital for a Bermuda-based collateralized reinsurance structure that provided sidecar-like support to its California homeowners managing general agent (MGA) Bamboo, showing that this strategy has been evolving over-time.
Find details of numerous reinsurance sidecar investments and transactions in our directory of collateralized reinsurance sidecars transactions.
