AmTrust Financial Services has launched East Reinsurance Services (East Re), a proportional treaty property reinsurance platform for North America. Kevin Sullivan (pictured), who built AmTrust's E&S property operation from the ground up, will lead it.
Sullivan joined AmTrust in April 2024 from AXA XL, where he spent more than 11 years as a vice president. His original remit was to establish and lead the property group. East Re is the next stage of that work. He takes the title of head of property reinsurance, transitioning from the E&S insurance side to treaty reinsurance on the same lines.
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East Re will focus initially on US property and specialty treaty reinsurance on a pro rata basis, targeting cedants in E&S property, high-value homeowners, specialty property, inland marine, and builders' risk. The proportional structure puts East Re in a market where capacity has been building steadily. Global reinsurer capital reached a record US$790 billion at mid-year 2026, according to Aon. A new entrant competing for pro rata business in that environment needs to offer something beyond price.
East Re is entering a market with abundant capacity and established players. The platform's answer is relationship capital and cycle experience. Sullivan has more than 30 years of property treaty experience across multiple market cycles. East Re's stated approach emphasises long-term broker and client relationships over opportunistic growth. The portfolio strategy balances catastrophe-exposed and non-catastrophe business, a discipline that matters more in soft markets when pressure to chase volume is strongest.
Erich Bublitz, executive vice president and head of AmTrust E&S, said Sullivan's two-year record of building AmTrust's property group positions him well to lead East Re. He cited Sullivan's experience managing portfolios through changing market cycles as central to that view.
AmTrust has been expanding its E&S division since early 2024, adding property, environmental, and builders risk lines alongside a restructured casualty brokerage group. East Re extends that build into treaty reinsurance, built on the cedant relationships Sullivan developed on the insurance side.
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