AXIS Re Names XL Catlin’s Leahey as Senior Cat U/W for Europe, MENA

April 12, 2017

AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. announced the appointment of Michael Leahey as vice president and deputy head of Catastrophe Underwriting for Europe, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Israel, for AXIS Re.

In addition to underwriting property catastrophe reinsurance business in those regions, Leahey will also help further expand the coordination between AXIS Re’s European Underwriting and Catastrophe modeling teams. He will report to Andrew Bisset, executive vice president, AXIS Re, and will be based in Zurich.

Leahey has nearly a decade of experience underwriting property reinsurance coverage, including catastrophe modeling and analysis of insurance-linked securities (ILS). He joins AXIS Re from XL Catlin, where he was a senior property underwriter and market manager for the Nordics region and senior property underwriter for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region.

Leahey began his reinsurance career at PartnerRe, where he held a succession of property catastrophe underwriting roles. Prior to that, he was an environmental geologist and engineer in Zurich.

“Michael’s appointment is an important step as we continue to enhance the services and expertise we provide our clients in the property cat treaty reinsurance space,” commented Bisset, noting that Leahey brings extensive experience in property-cat underwriting, portfolio analysis and pricing.

Leahey is a Chartered Financial Analyst and earned his Master’s Degree in Geophysics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, where he also received a Bachelor’s Degree in Earth Sciences.

Source: AXIS Capital Holdings