McGill and Partners has renewed its Ukraine war risks reinsurance facility for another year, doubling the maximum line per risk from $50 million to $100 million as the conflict enters its fourth year with no end in sight.
The London-based specialty broker said the facility remains the only one in the market offering war-related property coverage at this scale for businesses operating in Ukraine.
Carrier participation has more than doubled to 14 insurers – among them Aegis London, Atrium, AXIS, Liberty Specialty Markets, The Fidelis Partnership and Westfield Specialty International – bringing total aggregate commitments to $250 million for the next 12 months. More than $100 million of cover has been placed since the facility's inception.
The renewal underscores how far war risks coverage in Ukraine has come since the full-scale invasion gutted the market in February 2022. Research from CEPR and the Centre for Economic Strategy notes that insurance and reinsurance for war-related risks had been available even near the line of contact in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions before the invasion, but that coverage became "effectively impossible to get" across all of Ukraine afterward.
Analysis from Sayenko Kharenko, a Ukrainian law firm, found that foreign reinsurers distanced themselves from the market immediately once the war began.
Public institutions moved to fill the vacuum. MIGA has issued more than $215 million in political risk insurance guarantees since the invasion. The EBRD, meanwhile, launched a €110 million guarantee scheme with Aon in late 2024 to provide reinsurance capacity for war-related risks.
Earlier this month, Aon and KNIAZHA VIG separately secured a $25 million war risks reinsurance facility backed by the US International Development Finance Corporation, targeting SMEs and private individuals.
McGill and Partners' facility sits on the private-market side of that equation, providing reinsurance capacity to local Ukrainian cedants including ARX, the insurer it first partnered with on the program. The facility supports industries spanning energy production, manufacturing, warehousing, food and battery energy storage.
The renewed facility has been structured to accommodate future investments anticipated during Ukraine's reconstruction – a pipeline the World Bank's latest assessment, released this week, now values at almost $588 billion over the next decade, up from $524 billion previously.
That timeline remains uncertain. Three rounds of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US have been held, the latest on February 17–18 in Geneva.
However, fundamental sticking points – including the fate of the Donbas region and post-war security guarantees – are unresolved.
Chris Stevenson (pictured above), head of property, casualty and construction at McGill and Partners, said the firm was committed to ensuring the facility continues to provide meaningful support.
"We're pleased to increase the limits and provide access to coverage to support Ukrainian businesses as they navigate the devastating effects of war and look to rebuild in the future," Stevenson said.
