Removed reference to RenaissanceRe from paragraph 8

By James Thaler

March 24 - (The Insurer) – Dellwood Insurance Group has hired industry veteran and former Ventus, CapSpecialty and Aon executive Rich Goldfarb as its chief risk officer.

Goldfarb has held a number of senior industry roles, having most recently spent the last nine years with South Carolina-based MGU Ventus Risk Management, where he previously served as president, chief underwriting officer and chief actuary.

Since October 2024, he has been Ventus’ head of strategy. Ventus was launched by industry veterans George Reeth and Stuart Mercer in 2016 and acquired by Arch in 2019.

Before Ventus, Goldfarb was the chief financial officer and chief actuary at Alleghany-owned CapSpecialty and chief actuary and chief risk officer at Torus. Before that, Goldfarb was a managing director for property reinsurance and capital markets at Aon Benfield.

Goldfarb is a fellow and former board member of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

A spokesperson for Dellwood confirmed Goldfarb’s appointment in a statement to The Insurer.

“With an extensive track record in the industry and experience leading underwriting, actuarial, and risk management functions, Richard brings a wealth of knowledge and technical expertise to Dellwood,” the company said in a statement.

DELLWOOD CONTINUES TO SCALE

Goldfarb’s arrival continues the rapid build-out of the Michael Price- and Kean Driscoll-led start-up launched last year with around $250mn in capital and backing from industry players PartnerRe, Starr Insurance, and Central Insurance.

Individuals Dominic Addesso, David Delaney, VJ Dowling, Jim Hays, and principals from Stone Point Capital also invested.

The hires it has made from across the industry include Jeremy Salzman from Sompo as chief claims officer and former Nationwide and Golden Bear executive Tom Jurgens as head of contract binding.

It also hired Felicia Rawlin from Aspen and Kyle Garrett from Chubb Westchester for its property launch, among other executives.

In an interview with The Insurer TV at last September's WSIA Annual Marketplace in San Diego, Price said that the success of the startup will be driven by matching the “expertise and speed” of wholesale trading partners, adding that current P&C market conditions have a “multi-year runway”.

“E&S for us is expertise and speed, and if we can match that, hopefully we have a winning formula to trade in the market,” Price said at the time.

Asked what scaling Dellwood would look like, Price pointed out the challenge for any one carrier in attempting to move the market, but said that what a company can control is its “execution”.

“We fancy ourselves cycle managers. And so where we look at today, where we entered, we feel there are healthy trends where there's a need for capacity like Dellwood, and there's also an opportunity for us to make a good risk-adjusted return,” he explained.