Marsh launches Archer platform for life and annuity reinsurers, sidecars, SPIs and cells

With the life and annuity reinsurance space seeing a wave of interest from both internal and external sponsors, including third-party capital providers, Marsh has launched a new platform initiative named Archer that is designed to help sponsors quickly set up and launch a new life and annuity reinsurance structure including sidecars.

Archer by Marsh is a new service and platform to support asset managers and life and annuity insurers as they establish and operate reinsurance businesses, leveraging Marsh’s shared operating infrastructure while the sponsors retain ownership and strategic control.

Archer by Marsh helps clients to design and make product, asset, capital, and operating decisions, then sets up the vehicle or structure needed to carry them out, the company said.

The new platform service offering incorporates Marsh’s actuarial, capital, risk, reinsurance, life and annuity insurance management, and regulatory expertise to help create tailored structures that meet clients needs.

Those structures can ultimately range from standalone reinsurance vehicles, through life and annuity reinsurance sidecars, including special purpose reinsurers, dedicated reinsurance cells and standalone segregated accounts, Marsh said.

In order to facilitate the Archer by Marsh offering, the company has also set up and registered a new Bermuda based incorporated segregated accounts company named Mangrove ISAC Life Re, which can facilitate sidecar and affiliate reinsurance solutions.

Faisal Haddad, formerly part of Oliver Wyman’s actuarial practice and based in Bermuda, has been named as the CEO of Archer by Marsh, pending regulatory approvals.

Haddad commented on the launch of Archer, saying, “Successfully establishing and operating a vehicle of this kind requires a combination of capabilities across reinsurance, structuring, operations, governance, and regulation, and Marsh is uniquely positioned to bring these competencies together in a single vehicle.

“Its open-architecture model will harness the full breadth of Marsh’s capabilities alongside our strategic partner ecosystem, allowing us to assemble the right expertise around each opportunity and develop solutions built around each client’s specific needs. Just as importantly, Archer by Marsh provides the infrastructure to put those structures into operation, giving clients a powerful new way to access and participate in the asset-intensive reinsurance market with confidence.”

“The global insurance industry is changing rapidly, and our clients are looking beyond traditional solutions to unlock new avenues of growth, expand their global reach, and capture greater capital and technological efficiencies,” added David Weinsier, Partner and Chief Growth Officer for Oliver Wyman Actuarial and Insurance & Asset Management. “Archer by Marsh represents a differentiated model to meet those ambitions – bringing together capabilities from across our organization to serve our clients in ways that transcend conventional advisory and brokerage models.”

With the launch of Archer by Marsh, the company is responding to the clear demand and trend for third-party capital and asset managers to target returns from the life and annuity reinsurance opportunity.

By making the set up and operation of these life and annuity reinsurers and sidecars more efficient and easier for sponsors, we could see even more of them established over-time, bringing additional third-party capital into this area of the market.

It’s a similar venture to ones seen in property and casualty risks, where typically broking houses or insurance managers set up platforms to help third-party investors structure and manage the ongoing operations of insurance-linked securities (ILS) structures, including private ILS deals and sidecar arrangements.

Now, this is being translated to the life and annuity space and this could prove a very efficient way for third-party capital to enter that space with lower friction and more speed.

Demonstrating how active this segment has been, Fortitude Carlyle Asia Reinsurance, Ltd. (FCA Re) was set up via a joint initiative between Fortitude Re and global investment firm Carlyle in 2025, and capitalized with more than $700 million in deployable capital, comprising both equity and anticipated debt capacity.

Chariot Reinsurance (Chariot Re), a Bermuda-based life and annuity reinsurance sidecar company launched by MetLife, Inc. in partnership with investor General Atlantic, was also launched in 2025, and went on to complete its first transaction, assuming $10 billion of liabilities in July 2025. Also in recent weeks, Chariot Re raised additional capital to continue its expansion.

In addition, in 2026, Wilton Re partnered with Sun Life to launch Windsor Life Re, a new U.S. and Bermuda based company that will initially act as a kind of life and annuity reinsurance sidecar for the company and is expected to deploy around US $900 million in capital.

There has also been the recently established West Grove Re Ltd., a Bermuda based reinsurance sidecar that was launched by international life and annuity insurance specialist Talcott Financial Group. This structure was capitalised with around $1 billion, following a fundraising effort conducted in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

Of course, these ventures all have an asset intensive edge to them and the investors or asset managers backing them often have an appetite for the insurance premium float of capital they can deploy into investment strategies. So they are not akin to the low-correlated and fully-collateralized ILS investment routes for deriving reinsurance-linked returns, but they are another example of the attraction third-party capital has for the insurance sector.

As a reminder, you can find details of numerous reinsurance sidecar investments and transactions, including life and annuity reinsurance sidecar structures, in our directory of reinsurance sidecar transactions.