US agents and brokers know AmTrust Financial Services for small commercial workers’ comp, business owner’s policies and warranty programs, run from its Lower Manhattan headquarters. In London, it is about to become something else entirely: the developer of one of the tallest buildings in the UK.
The New York-based specialty insurer is drawing up plans to demolish Exchequer Court, the office block it owns at 33 St Mary Axe in the City of London, and put up a 70-story tower of roughly 300 meters - close to 1,000 feet - in its place, according to reports this week. The site sits at the center of London’s insurance quarter, across the street from the descriptively named Gherkin and a few minutes’ walk from Lloyd’s.
For US brokers, the interesting part is not the skyline but what the project says about where AmTrust sees its future. London is where much of the capacity behind US specialty and MGA business is written: the US accounts for roughly half of Lloyd’s global premium, and Lloyd’s supplied more than $20 billion of US surplus lines capacity in 2024, about 16% of that market, according to Triple-I figures reported by IB. AmTrust, an A- rated carrier that wrote about $8 billion in gross premium in 2023, according to its IB company profile, has just rebuilt its own MGA business around that flow of capital.
The man drawing it up is Sir George Iacobescu. The Romanian-born engineer spent 36 years turning Canary Wharf, a derelict stretch of London’s old docks, into the city’s second financial district, before retiring as chairman of Canary Wharf Group in July 2024.
The tower would hold around 1 million square feet of offices. A public consultation is due to open this month, and a planning application to the City of London Corporation - the local authority for the Square Mile, London’s answer to the Financial District - is expected in early 2027. If it is approved, AmTrust wants the building finished by 2033.
Chaya Cooperberg, AmTrust’s chief people and communications officer, cast the project as a vote of confidence in the city. “This is a long-term commitment to London we are making,” she said, adding that AmTrust expects the tower to help meet demand for top-quality office space.
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Exchequer Court is not a speculative buy. AmTrust has owned it since early 2017, when it paid £105 million - roughly $130 million at the time - according to Savills research. It is also the London base of AmTrust International and the registered office of its UK carrier, AmTrust Specialty Limited, which traded as AmTrust Europe until January 2025.
The UK business has changed shape over the past year. In December 2025, AmTrust closed its deal with Blackstone Credit & Insurance to move seven MGAs and fee businesses from the US, UK and continental Europe into a new standalone platform, ANV Group Holdings. AmTrust kept a significant stake and signed a ten-year agreement to keep providing underwriting capacity.
One of those seven is Arc Legal, a UK legal expenses specialist, which has since named a new CEO as ANV readies a UK growth push. AmTrust is still putting its own balance sheet to work in Britain, too: it recently extended capacity for Arkel to £380 million as the UK non-standard property market tightens.
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The London project is arriving as AmTrust repositions at home. In February it rebranded its warranty and specialty risk unit as AmTrust Risk Solutions, covering credit, surety, legal protection, travel, renters and niche programs alongside its warranty and service contracts.
The ANV spin-off also fits a wider trend. The US MGA channel reached an estimated $128 billion in premium in 2025, and carriers increasingly earn their keep as capacity providers rather than owners of distribution. London is central to that business: Conning has described Lloyd’s as historically the largest single source of capacity for US MGAs. An address a few blocks from Lloyd’s is not just about prestige.
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At about 300 meters (c985 feet), the tower would sit just below the Shard, the UK’s tallest building at 309.6 meters (1,016 feet), and alongside One London, a planned tower of the same height on the site of Aviva’s former headquarters. The rest of the market is staying close: Lloyd’s has committed to its One Lime Street home until at least 2035.
A building this size is a big risk to place: builder’s risk during construction, delay in start-up cover and, once it is up, latent defects. AmTrust knows the territory, having set up a builders risk group within its E&S division in 2025.
London adds a twist US developers rarely face. Under English law, neighbors can hold a “right to light” that is separate from planning permission, so a tower can be approved and still face claims from buildings it overshadows. Most of these disputes in the City end in negotiated payouts rather than court, and specialist rights-of-light insurance is a routine part of big London developments.
None of this will be tested until the consultation closes and the application is filed. But the message from Maiden Lane is clear: AmTrust is not just staying in London’s insurance district, it wants a place on its skyline.
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