Nephila Capital fund management revenues rose 68% to $159.2m for Markel in 2025

Nephila Capital contributed an impressive $159.2 million in fund management revenues to its parent Markel in 2025, with the figure having risen 68% over the prior year and Tom Gayner, Markel CEO, said the ILS unit “delivered” for its investors as well.

We’d already reported, based on information in Markel’s results announcement, that Nephila Capital, the specialist insurance-linked securities and catastrophe reinsurance investment manager, had grown the property catastrophe program premiums for its insurance-linked securities management activities in the last year.

In fact, for 2025, Markel reported gross fronting premium volumes under these programs reached almost $1.855 billion for the year, which it cited as a 42% increase on the $1.306 billion of 2024.

Markel had also said that higher fee income was a driver that contributed to its organic revenue growth for 2025, but at the time had not reported any figures behind this.

Now, the Markel annual filing shows that fund management revenues attributed to Nephila Capital’s ILS business entities totalled $159.2 million for full-year 2025.

Which was an impressive 68% increase on the $94.6 million of fund management revenues generated by the ILS management unit in 2024.

In his annual letter to shareholders, Markel CEO Tom Gayner commented on the Nephila team, saying, “Greg Hagood, Frank Majors, and Jess Laird, and their team at Nephila, continue to operate profitable businesses of scale with substantial avenues for growth.”

He further explained, “Nephila also had a strong year, delivering for their third-party capital providers in 2025 amid a benign year for property catastrophe events. Nephila generated significant incentive fees.

“We believe interest in Nephila’s products should grow as they continue producing good results for limited partners.”

One driver of strengthening performance has been a steady increase in assets under management.

Recall that, Nephila Capital’s assets under management (AUM) reached $7.6 billion as of September 30th 2025, an increase of $600 million over the prior twelve months.

Over the final quarter of last year some additional AUM was added, with Nephila Capital reaching January 1st 2026 with $7.7 billion of third-party assets under management, Artemis can report.

As we also recently reported, Nephila Capital won a new $200 million specialty lines focused investment mandate from the Florida State Board of Administration on behalf of the Florida Retirement System Pension Plan.

Given the way Nephila has developed its own platform infrastructure and integrated into the Markel operations over the last few years, headline AUM is less of a direct signal for market stature any more.

As we’ve reported, the ILS manager is able to originate far more in premiums per-dollar of assets these days, thanks to the efficiency of the risk origination infrastructure it now utilises and the way that can lever its capital base.

The growth in program premiums fronted for Nephila entities and the meaningful increase in fund management revenues both demonstrate that the ILS manager can do more with the assets under management it has, delivering increasing benefits to its investor base and to parent Markel.

In his letter to shareholders, Markel CEO Tom Gayner also highlighted some organisational adjustments of relevance to Nephila Capital.

Commenting on where both Nephila and program fronting specialist State National now sit in the wider organisation, the CEO explained, “Regarding an organizational change in 2025, we gave the responsibility for supporting Nephila and State National to Andrew Crowley, from where the businesses previously sat as part of Markel Insurance. Andrew has worked with the Industrial and Consumer and Other businesses of The Markel Group for fourteen years now, and he has done a spectacular job.

“Like our actions to simplify and increase accountability within Markel Insurance, we made this change for similar reasons.

“Further, we want State National and Nephila to operate with clear lines of demarcation from our refocused underwriting operations under Simon’s leadership. I am confident that Andrew and his team will provide excellent support and guidance to Matt, Greg, Frank, Jess, and their teams, as he has for so many businesses and leaders in our Industrial and Consumer businesses for more than a decade now.”

View information on dedicated ILS fund managers, as well as reinsurers offering ILS style investment opportunities, in our Insurance-Linked Securities Investment Managers & Funds Directory.