Upland launches public entity excess liability offering

Upland Capital Group will begin offering excess liability coverage for public entities from the middle of next month as the newly launched E&S start-up continues to build out its platform.

The new offering will cover entities such as counties, municipalities, school districts, higher education systems, and public utilities, among others.

Upland will write the excess liability coverage in all 50 states on non-admitted paper. It will offer excess limits of up to $2mn with a minimum attachment point of $5mn.

As this publication has previously reported, former Narragansett Bay Insurance Company CEO Todd Hart teamed up with James Damonte, Mark Morrison and Pamela Byron-Button to launch E&S carrier Upland with $200mn of backing from Newlight Partners at the beginning of this year.

Among the hires that have been made by the nascent Dallas, Texas-based E&S carrier is Richard Wilson, Hallmark’s former national practice leader for public entity business.

Wilson, who has been appointed senior vice president, casualty, at Upland will lead the new excess liability offering. Immediately prior to joining Upland, Wilson served as senior vice president – excess public entity at Scion Underwriting.

“Richard is well-respected in the public entity insurance industry so he’s the perfect person to lead this new offering at Upland Capital Group,” said Damonte, Upland’s president of insurance operations and CUO.

“Even better, I have personally worked closely with him over the years. I’ve seen him in action and have always been impressed with his professionalism and productivity,” Damonte added.

“Our aim is to grow Upland Capital Group purposefully and begin by focusing on people and product with which we’ve had previous successful relationships,” said Hart, Upland’s chairman, president and CEO.

“I have the utmost confidence that Richard’s vision aligns with the rest of the leadership team,” he added.

Launch of the new excess liability coverage comes after Upland launched its initial offering back in February – an excess transportation liability specialty coverage. That offering targets fleet sizes up to 250 revenue producing vehicles, and will be delivered through select wholesale brokers.

More recently, AM Best assigned a financial strength rating of A- and a long-term issuer credit rating of “a-” to Upland Specialty, a subsidiary of Pursuit Investors which is the holding company of Upland Capital Group.