When Skyward Specialty agreed to buy Apollo for $555m in September 2025, the Houston carrier was getting more than a pair of Lloyd’s syndicates. It was buying a managing agency that lends its licence, infrastructure and underwriting know-how to other people’s capital. Ten months after the deal closed, that is the part growing fastest.
Fee-generating premium from Apollo’s partner syndicates, which it runs for third-party backers without committing capital of its own, jumped 71.7% to $115.6m (£87.0m) in the three months to 30 September. That is according to Skyward Group’s third-quarter results filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Across every Apollo-managed syndicate, fee-generating premium rose 18.4% to $517.1m (£389.2m), double the 9.0% growth in the group’s gross written premium. Apollo booked $11m (£8.3m) of underwriting fee income in the quarter and $33.7m (£25.4m) over nine months.
On Friday’s earnings call, chairman and CEO Andrew Robinson called the partner platform “an exciting and unique differentiator” and said Skyward was still in the early stages of realising its potential.
Apollo launched two more partner syndicates in the quarter. The headline name is Generali, which is entering Lloyd’s for the first time with Syndicate 2031 Red Bridge. The vehicle will take a share of the Italian insurer’s outward reinsurance across several lines, backed by third-party capital, with Howden Re advising Generali. It starts underwriting in January 2027 and takes Apollo to 11 syndicates under management.
Deputy CFO Taryn McHarg told analysts that Apollo will not take a participation in either new syndicate, in line with the rest of its partner platform. She expects Red Bridge to follow the usual pattern of starting small and building, rather than becoming Apollo’s largest partner syndicate in the near term.
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Apollo’s own book grew more slowly with gross written premium rising 3.4% to $135.2m (£101.8m). Specialty Syndicate 1969 grew 10.5% to $67.5m (£50.8m), while Syndicate 1971, the ibott platform for the digital and sharing economy, slipped 2.9% to $67.7m (£51.0m). Management put that down to one renewal moving in time and seasonally lighter new business. Over nine months, Apollo’s gross written premium is up 13.5% to $293.9m (£221.2m).
McHarg said Apollo’s rate was slightly negative in the quarter, though rate adequacy remains strong and retention is in the mid-80s. That tracks the wider market, where Lloyd’s risk-adjusted rates fell 6.7% in the first half of 2026, almost twice the pace of a year earlier.
Apollo posted a 90.5% combined ratio, against 88.3% for Skyward’s US business. Its losses were lighter: a 55.2% non-catastrophe loss ratio, plus 2.8 points of catastrophe losses, mostly from convective storms. Costs were the drag, with an expense ratio of 32.5% against 25.7% in the US. Robinson said Apollo often works through small teams on very specific classes, so he would not expect the same expense gains there as in the US, where AI-driven underwriting has absorbed heavier submission volumes.
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Robinson said third-party capital makes up 75% of the total backing Syndicates 1969 and 1971, and every indication is that the split will hold for 2027.
Apollo’s ReShare Syndicate 1972, which began underwriting this year and provides follow-only capacity on the outwards reinsurance programmes of Apollo-managed syndicates, now has a transatlantic role too. Robinson said Skyward will place part of its US reinsurance through 1972, recapturing some of the fees. McHarg said Apollo’s own reinsurance buying structure will not change for 2027.
Read next: Apollo to launch ReShare Syndicate 1972, eyes January start
The integration is also sending Lloyd’s products west. Skyward has launched ibott in the US primary market, focused on autonomous vehicles, and reports it through its Strategic Distribution Partners division. Robinson described Skyward’s autonomous vehicle partnership with Uber as a J-curve, with exposures likely to earn through visibly from the 2028 financial year.
The finance function is, however, moving the other way. McHarg, Apollo’s CFO for more than four years and a former Bupa and EY executive, will succeed Mark Haushill as Skyward Group CFO on 31 March 2027, putting Apollo’s finance chief at the top of a Nasdaq-listed US group.
At group level, Skyward’s diluted operating earnings per share rose 22% to $1.28 (96p), and managed premiums, which combine gross written and fee-generating premium, grew 12.5% to $1.32bn (£994m). The group combined ratio was 89.9%. Robinson said he expects managed premium to keep outgrowing reported gross written premium, which is another way of saying the Apollo platform should carry a growing share of Skyward’s growth.
The test for 2027 is whether fee growth holds as the London market softens. On the evidence of the third quarter, more capital still wants a Lloyd’s home, even as underwriting margins narrow.
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