AXIS ILS unit leader Chris Caponigro to depart firm

Artemis has learned that Chris Caponigro, the Global Head of AXIS ILS, the third party capital unit of Bermuda-based insurer and reinsurer AXIS Capital, is to depart the company this June.

Caponigro has a strong technical background in underwriting property, catastrophe and specialty risks, as well as in insurance-linked securities (ILS) and third-party reinsurance capital strategy and business development.

He joined AXIS Capital around the middle of 2021, taking on the role of Global Head of the firm’s newly rebranded at the time AXIS ILS unit.

In the role, Caponigro has been responsible for oversight of AXIS Capital’s activities related to third-party capital management, as well as the strategy for integrating sources of investor capital across its insurance and reinsurance business lines.

His career before AXIS saw Caponigro focused on underwriting at firms including St Paul Re and Platinum Underwriters, from the mid-1990’s through 2015.

He served as Head of North American Catastrophe Lines at Platinum Underwriters Bermuda, prior to which he held senior reinsurance underwriting and corporate roles, with increasing levels of authority, at Platinum and before that St. Paul Re.

In 2015, Caponigro joined global reinsurer Everest Re, where he served as Head of Business Development at the firm’s Mt. Logan Re collateralized reinsurance sidecar-like structure, working there up to joining AXIS ILS in 2021.

AXIS Capital has been through some strategic changes in recent years, pulling back from property catastrophe risks and refocusing its third-party and ILS capital efforts on other lines of insurance and reinsurance business.

We understand Caponigro’s departure occurs at the start of June.

AXIS Capital declined to comment on this news.