Validus Specialty Underwriting has announced the renewal and increase of its political risk insurance (PRI) binding authority from its New York office. The binder is fully underwritten by various underwriters at Lloyd’s and led by Talbot.

The facility was first launched in 2016 at US$125mn. To meet the demand for growth in 2017, capacity has increased to US$240mn per acceptance.

Binder participants include syndicates managed by Ascot, CNA Hardy, Sompo Canopius and Starstone. New to the 2017 facility are Amtrust, Ark, Brit and Novae.

The 2017 facility will provide brokers and clients in the Americas with a “one-stop shop” to access PRI capacity from the Lloyd’s market, reads a release from Validus Specialty.

According to Jared Kotler, head of political risk and credit at Validus Specialty, the company has seen a significant amount of demand for PRI business through the binding authority over the past 12 months. “By increasing the facility to a market-leading US$240mn capacity, our private equity, global financial institutions and multinational clients will have a place to obtain bespoke, cost efficient PRI policies to mitigate the country risk in their global exposures,” he says.

He explains to GTR that this is not a typical binding authority whereby a Lloyd’s syndicate opens an office in a foreign location and signs an agreement with that office to allow it to bind business on behalf of that syndicate. Instead, this binder aggregates the capacity of nine Lloyd’s syndicates in one office.

The capacity, he says, is more than any other private insurance company, “the closest is XL Catlin with US$200mn”.

Kotler adds that the binder was extremely successful last year in attracting new clients to the PRI product, which has allowed the company to grow the binder this year from five to nine syndicates.

The facility can only be accessed via appropriately licensed brokers.