Beazley, Co-Founder of Beazley Group, Passes Away

The co-founder and former CEO of Beazley Group, Andrew Beazley, has passed away at the age of 57.

Beazley was co-founder of the company and its CEO for 22 years of its 24-year history.

The company founded by Andrew Beazley and Nick Furlonge in 1986 is now among the largest businesses in the Lloyd’s market, employing some 720 people.

Beazley served as a member of the Lloyd’s Market Board from 1994 and 1997, during which time the market responded to some of the heaviest losses in its history with radical reforms including the creation of Equitas to reinsure liabilities from earlier years.

A tribute on Beazley Group’s Web site states: “Throughout this time, Andrew was one of a small band of senior Lloyd’s underwriters who traveled constantly to the United States – then as now Lloyd’s largest market – to talk with clients and brokers about the challenges Lloyd’s faced and its plans to overcome them. At a time when the Lloyd’s market was unrated by the credit rating agencies, the personal credibility of Andrew Beazley and his fellow underwriters was critical in maintaining confidence in Lloyd’s.”

Beazley later became a member of the Chairman’s Strategy Group at Lloyd’s, which later led to the creation of the Franchise Board in 2003.

“Beazley Group paid heavy claims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, but emerged stronger after each event,” the tribute states. ” In 2004, under Andrew’s leadership, the company took a major strategic decision to underwrite business locally in the United States, acquiring Omaha Property & Casualty and renaming it Beazley Insurance Company Inc. In 2005, their first year of trading, Beazley’s U.S. operations wrote premiums of $15 million; by 2009 this had grown to $370 million.”

Beazley was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. He is survived by his wife, Anne, and three children, Christopher, Emma and Nicholas.