US-headquartered insurance holding firm, W. R. Berkley Corporation, reported higher premiums being ceded to its Lifson Re collateralized reinsurance sidecar for both the second-quarter and first-half of 2026, while the company also recognised more fee income being earned from the structure.
Readers will recall that W. R. Berkley capitalised the Lifson Re sidecar to the tune of $418 million for 2025, which marked the vehicle’s largest capital raise at the time.
As we’ve highlighted before, there’s been no change for the 2026 underwriting year, with the sidecar’s capitalisation remaining static and W. R. Berkley’s stake and the quota share cession ratio both remaining at 32.5%.
For full-year 2025, W. R. Berkley reported that written premiums ceded to the sidecar had risen to $494 million, which marked the highest annual level the company had recorded to date.
In the first-quarter of 2026, W. R. Berkley also reported that it ceded just over $118.5 million of premiums to Lifson Re, which was higher than the Q1 2025 figure of just over $106 million.
Now in its second-quarter 2026 results, W. R. Berkley has reported that it ceded $148.5 million of premiums to Lifson Re, which is higher than the Q2 2026 figure of $140.3 million.
Ceded commissions and brokerage slightly declined, to $34.4 million, down from $35.6 million a year earlier.
In its H1 2026 results, W. R. Berkley reported that it ceded just over $267 million of premiums to Lifson Re, which was also higher than H2 2025’s $245.5 million.
At the same time, ceded commissions and brokerage increased to $68.3 million, up from $66 million in the prior year period.
Importantly, fee income generated from management and performance related compensation related to Lifson Re rose to $5 million for the first half of 2026, up from $3 million a year earlier.
W. R. Berkley utilises Lifson Re to help it manage gross premiums and its own capital by partnering with third-party capital partners, acknowledging the advantages of efficiency and generating some fee income, while also managing exposure with the assistance of Lifson Re.
As a reminder, you can find details of numerous reinsurance sidecar investments and transactions in our directory of collateralized reinsurance sidecars transactions.
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