JLT Specialty USA Founding Leader Rice Becomes CEO of CAC Specialty

Newly launched specialty insurance broker CAC Specialty announced the appointment of Michael D. Rice II as its chief executive officer.

Rice brings years of experience in the brokerage industry. Most recently, he served as the founding CEO and executive chairman of JLT Specialty USA. He first joined JLT Specialty Insurance Services in 2014 after 25 years at Aon serving in various leadership capacities including chief sales officer and financial services group CEO.

CAC Specialty is a combined insurance brokerage and investment banking platform that is looking to offer customized insurance and risk transfer services to large corporates, small and medium sized businesses, private equity, and other alternative fund managers.

CAC, which is majority employee-owned, was formed by Alabama-based specialty insurance broker Cobbs Allen. CAC Specialty will have offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and New York.

Rice will lead CAC’s team of executives that includes Bruce Denson Jr., president; David Payne, chief revenue officer; and Jack Leventhal, senior managing director and head of Investment Banking. Payne, who joined Cobbs Allen recently, was previously chief revenue officer of JLT; Leventhal is senior managing director and executive officer at Teneo Capital; and Denson is president of Cobbs Allen.

CAC Specialty said it will provide structuring expertise and placement capabilities across the spectrum of insurance and alternative capital markets. Insurance linked securities (ILS) will not be its focus; rather, it said it is interested in other types of transactions including:

• The transfer of the risk of a large portfolio of unfunded revolving lines of credit (non-investment grade) from the banking market to the insurance market, where the capital rules are less formulaic and more risk-based.
• The use of insurance to credit enhance letters of credit, which the company said creates efficiencies when the underlying risk is related to the guarantee of performance instead of true credit exposure.
• The use of insurance to structure a “money-back” investor guarantee for a diversified investment pool. CAC said it recently did this for a retail-focused real estate investment fund.
• Leveraged loans and other bespoke financing solutions, which the firm said are relevant in midsize financial sponsor and SME markets, where CAC can be seen as a source of financing in transactional or distressed situations.

*This story ran previously in our sister publication Insurance Journal.