Third-party capital helps Hiscox’s market relevance, expands underwriting capacity: CUO Musselle

Hiscox Re, the reinsurance operation and third-party capital platform of Hiscox Ltd, continues to utilise its Capital Partners division to gain further relevance in the market, and deploy more underwriting capabilities, according to Hiscox Group Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO), Joanne Musselle.

Recall that Hiscox Re, the reinsurance division of Hiscox Group, earlier this year launched Hiscox Capital Partners as a dedicated business unit to consolidate all its capital partnership activity, which includes both third-party capital and insurance-linked securities (ILS).

Speaking to analysts this morning during a webcast for Hiscox’s first-half 2026 results, Musselle highlighted how effective the division has been for the organisation since its launch.

“Scaling Hiscox Capital Partners, so, third-party capital gives us both relevance in the market, but it also enables us to deploy more of our underwriting capability than our own balance sheet would allow, and this builds attractive portfolios for our partners and fee income for ourselves,” the CUO explained.

Meanwhile during his opening remarks, Aki Hussain, CEO of Hiscox, highlighted how Hiscox Re’s underwriting and risk selecting continues to attract third-party capital providers.

“In reinsurance, we have once again delivered an excellent combined ratio of 70%. This follows three years of achieving outstanding combined ratios in the 60s. Our disciplined underwriting and risk selecting continue to be recognised by third-party capital providers, driving the top line in the first half,” Hussain told analysts this morning.

Adding further context, Paul Cooper, Chief Financial Officer, noted that Hiscox Re’s insurance contract written premium (ICWP) increased by 6.4% year-on-year to $944.5 million in H1 2026, heavily driven by new third-party capital inflows from quota-share partners and institutional investors.

“Net premiums declined by 7.4% as we maintained discipline in property catastrophe and retro lines, reducing exposure in areas where returns fail to meet our profitability hurdles or target volatility profile. This was partially offset by growth in specialty and pro rata lines,” Cooper said.

“The insurance service result increased to $62.5 million, reflecting strong underwriting performance and a benign natural catastrophe environment compared with the prior year. As such, Hiscox Re delivered an excellent undiscounted combined ratio of 70.4,” he continued.

Turning attention towards ILS, Cooper said: “We continue to see strong demand from third-party capital, with assets under management increasing to $2.9 billion, of which $1 billion is in our cat bond fund. Fee income from third-party capital was $53 million in the first half.

“Overall Hiscox Re is delivering disciplined underwriting results and generating attractive fee income through our Capital Partners platform.”

As we highlighted in our article this morning, Hiscox’s third-party capital assets under its range of ILS offerings previously stood at $2.4 billion as of April 1st this year.

However, given that this figure was $1.5 billion in ILS assets at the start of this year, Hiscox Capital Partners ILS AUM have managed to surge by an impressive 93% in 2026 so far to reach $2.9 billion at July 1st.

Hiscox Capital Partners is just one of the specialist managers of catastrophe bond and ILS funds listed in our Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Investment Managers & Funds Directory.