The Puerto Rico-based platform is the latest in a flurry of new MGAs targeting Latin American and Caribbean reinsurance business.
Juarbe was previously head of Latin America and Caribbean financial lines and casualty for The Hartford and held the same role at predecessor company Navigators prior to its acquisition.
Defense Re writes facultative reinsurance financial lines and commercial coverages such as financial institutions (FI), bankers’ blanket bond (BBB), professional indemnity (PI), directors’ and officers’ (D&O), commercial crime and investment management insurance (IMI), among others.
Defense Re offers these financial lines and commercial fac products in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama, as well as the Caribbean with the exception of Puerto Rico.
And through the support of Patria Re, Defense Re is currently able to write limits of up to $3.5mn for both its financial and commercial lines offerings.
The MGA began writing business at the start of the year, and Juarbe is understood to already be having conversations with other parties interested in supporting the MGA in the future.
Defense Re is one element of a two-part offering from Juarbe, who in addition to working for The Hartford and Navigators has also spent time at Everest Re and Willis Re focused on the Latin American markets.
The launch of Defense Re earlier this year came after Juarbe, who began his insurance career in 2005 with Ace New York after spending six years in the US Marines, opened another MGA in November called Defense Puerto Rico.
Like Defense Re, this insurance-focused MGA writes financial lines and commercial coverages such as FI, BBB, PI, D&O, commercial crime and IMI, but on an admitted basis in Puerto Rico.
Defense Puerto Rico can offer limits of up to $6.5mn per line and writes business on behalf of local carrier Antilles Insurance Company.
A quota share treaty sitting behind Antilles that is placed with companies including Patria Re, OdysseyRe, Allied World and others, provides further support.
The two new Defense-branded offerings are just the latest examples of what has become a surge of MGA formations targeting the Latin American and Caribbean markets in recent years.