In Conversation: Westfield Specialty’s Jack Kuhn Talks Specialty Lines, the Casualty Market and Insurance Opportunities

Jack Kuhn, president of Westfield Specialty, sat down with Risk & Insurance at RISKWORLD 2024 to discuss the latest happenings and opportunities for his business and insurance at large.

“It’s been interesting. It’s been sort of a tale of two cities in the sense that some markets are going through a softening of the market; there’re others that are now starting to really have more of a hard market feel to them,” he shared with R&I’s Dan Reynolds.

Kuhn noted that casualty is one market starting to feel a hardening at this time, citing data collected from 2013 to 2019.

He also noted that the seismic shift property markets felt last year is a prime example of the hardening markets — and how quickly the shift can happen.

As a specialty insurer, Westfield Specialty is working to fill in the gap when the market is hard. Most importantly, Kuhn said, “we want to be there as a vehicle to solve problems or add value to the customer.”

When it comes to hard market trends, this is Westfield’s bread and butter: “Those ‘problematic’ lines are probably more appealing for us, because there is opportunity there because of the tighter conditions and higher pricing.”

Here’s our conversation with Kuhn in full: