AmTrust International (AI) created a new specialist mortgage and credit Managing General Agent (MGA), Qualis Credit Risk, earlier in the year and its existing mortgage and credit business has been transferred to Qualis.

Over the last few months the MGA has been working on its strategic growth plans in Europe and the UK.

Qualis Credit Risk writes on AI paper and is wholly-owned by the AmTrust Group. It is made up of two entities, Qualis U.K. Ltd, primarily focusing on UK business, and Qualis Europe Srl, focusing on European business.

Qualis has already been active as a MGA in Italy, recently finalising a new capital relief transaction on a 1.3billion euros portfolio of high LTV mortgages originated by Intesa Sanpaolo.

Qualis helped create the deal structure and co-ordinated the panel of insurers to successfully close the transaction, in collaboration with Intesa’s Active Credit Portfolio Steering team and Imi Corporate & Investment banking divisions.

Patrick Bamford, head of international at Qualis, said: “The creation of the MGA opened an exciting new chapter for the team at Qualis and we are delighted that AmTrust committed to the provision of sufficient capacity to help us deliver growth in this sector.

“Activity is already well underway as can be seen by the recent capital relief transaction secured by our Italian team and this is just the start of what we believe will be a very successful operation.”

The team at Qualis has 20 years of experience in the UK and European markets – the team originally started at Genworth Financial – and the business was acquired by AmTrust Financial Services in 2016.

In the UK Qualis predominantly offers mortgage indemnity insurance to building societies, banks and other financial institutions. In addition, Qualis will pursue other opportunities in different areas of the financial services market, such as creditor insurance in both the UK and across Europe.

Qualis is one of a stable of MGAs within AmTrust International which include Arc Legal Assistance, Car Care Plan, and Collegiate Management Services.

Qualis continues to work with the existing roster of AmTrust Mortgage & Credit Risk clients with a ‘business as usual’ approach. The insurance is needed for clients to be able to offer a range of high loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages to borrowers.

Qualis has been appointed by AmTrust International UK and Irish carriers to bind coverage, underwrite, price, settle claims and manage commercial relationships on behalf of AmTrust Europe Limited and AmTrust International Underwriters DAC. Qualis also intends to work with non-AmTrust carriers to tailor specific products to its clients’ needs.

Bamford added: “For existing clients, it has been business as usual and, in terms of how we approach the future, this MGA allows us to continue the quality of service and product offering we have become renowned for. We have the most experienced team in Europe in this sector and this gives us a unique offering in the credit risk market and helps us develop a much stronger overall proposition.

“We have been talking to existing clients about the creation of Qualis for some time, outlining what it means for them, while highlighting our ambitious growth plans in the UK in helping both existing and new clients secure the risk-mitigation products they need to grow their lending activities.”