Insurance Solutions & Structuring has quietly become one of the most fought-over skill sets in the insurance investment market. These are just a few of the moves we have been watching closely at Laz Partners.
Rick Varaden, PhD has joined Sona Asset Management as Director of Structured Solutions, having previously led structuring at Legal & General. Luigi Grasso has joined Goldman Sachs as Head of EMEA Insurance Solutions. And, in one of several other moves we have been involved in, which includes an MD-level structurer has recently moved into a major bank's FICC business, having previously working within the insurance solutions arm of a large alternative manager.
Three different types of firm, one skill set, and talent flowing in every direction at once.
What firms are actually buying:
The common thread is structuring for capital efficiency. When an insurer accesses private credit through a rated note feeder rather than holding the assets directly, the regulatory capital it must set aside can fall sharply, in some cases from around 49% to as little as 5 to 15%. Reinsurance achieves something comparable at the balance-sheet level. A structurer who can design these solutions sits at the centre of how a firm generates returns, and increasingly, of how it generates revenue.
Why compensation is moving:
Because that edge is real and measurable, firms will pay for the people who create it, and we are seeing comp moving upwards at a rapid rate. We are seeing hedge funds building in this space alongside the alternative managers and insurers, and all of them are competing for the same small pool of talent. This capability has become a clear and tangible revenue engine, and the market is pricing the talent to match.
Our perspective:
We know this space well, having recently placed multiple high-profile structurers with insurance expertise, from MD through to ED and VP-equivalent level, across both the buy side and the sell side.
We continue to speak regularly with the top talent in this pool, at every level of insurance and regulatory framework expertise, because we expect a number of new mandates are coming. By design we partner with only two or three clients in this market at any one time, ranging from a large US alternative investment manager that leads its field, to a major financial institution, to a mid-sized and fast-growing player built on a very different model.
This is the age of the structurer. If you have structuring expertise in insurance, whether in rates, public or private credit, or a mix of the two, you hold one of the strongest and most in demand skill sets in the market today.
