Vantage installs Arch actuary as CRO ahead of growth push

Vantage is installing the risk function before the expansion it is meant to govern. Yves Charbonneau has joined the Bermuda reinsurer as chief risk officer, Royal Gazette Bermuda Re reported, arriving from Arch Capital, where Vantage said he most recently headed the actuarial function at Arch Insurance Company in Canada and used that post to build a portfolio-management culture, rework data analytics and strategy, and sharpen underwriting discipline.

Charbonneau's résumé spans nearly three decades in actuarial and enterprise risk work, more than 15 of those years at Arch Reinsurance in Bermuda, where he served as chief risk officer, chief actuary, and head of actuarial function for Arch Re Europe. He also sat as a director and audit committee member of Coface SA and holds fellowships in the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, according to the report.

At Vantage, Charbonneau succeeds Krista Robinson, who is leaving to pursue a new opportunity, and the transition lands as the company seeks to accelerate growth after Howard Hughes Holdings acquired it in June. Executive chairman Marc Grandisson cast the hire as rigor at the center of the risk function, citing Charbonneau's record building enterprise risk frameworks in Bermuda and leading capital and reserving discipline. Charbonneau described Vantage as a highly differentiated platform and said he expects to partner with leadership on disciplined expansion.

The seat is being filled by an actuary who has already sat in the Bermuda chief risk officer chair, and it is being filled before the expansion he will govern. The discipline test for reinsurers has shifted from price to structure, as this publication has argued, and Vantage has filled the role that will enforce that structure before the growth that will test it.