AXIS Capital, the global specialty insurance and reinsurance underwriter, has reported higher fee income from its strategic capital partner arrangements in the first-quarter of the year, as insurance-linked securities and third-party capital activities continue to build.
For full-year 2025 AXIS Capital demonstrated how it has continued to leverage alternative capital through partnerships with third-party investors, with these activities generating $54 million of ILS style fee income in the year.
In the first-quarter of 2026, strategic capital partner related fee income reached $23 million, up from $16 million in the prior year period.
AXIS Capital said that $18 million of this was recognised as a reimbursement of general and administrative expenses, and the increase in fee income helped it to lower its underwriting-related general and administrative expense ratio by 1.2 points in the first-quarter.
Recall that, AXIS Capital partnered with insurance sector focused investor Stone Point to launch casualty sidecar structure Monarch Point Re in 2023, after a more than $400 million capital raise.
As that strategy has developed, AXIS has been launching new underwriting entities to support Monarch Point Re, the most recent being collateralized insurer Monarch Point Re (ISA 2026) Ltd. launched for the current underwriting year.
In the first-quarter, AXIS reported a restructuring of certain existing quota share treaties with strategic capital partners, that served to decrease its retention of credit and surety lines business.
Demonstrating how the Monarch Point Re casualty sidecar like strategy continues to deliver for AXIS, the company reported the carrying value of its stake in the structures as having increased from around $63.7 million at the end of 2025, to almost $73.3 million at the end of March 2026.
AXIS Capital continues to develop its partnerships with third-party capital partners, enabling the company to increase its scale and relevance in the market with the support of investors, better manage risk and capital, all while earning fee income and being able to capitalise on opportunities it may not always want to retain the entirety of on its own balance-sheet, but that the partnering investors have an appetite for.
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