Bermuda-based specialty insurer Awbury has expanded into Japan, with its Lloyd’s syndicate beginning to underwrite business in one of the world’s largest financial markets.

Awbury Group said Awbury Syndicate 2025 began underwriting Japanese business on October 1, bringing the group’s credit and financial risk products to the country for the first time.

The expansion gives Japanese financial institutions and companies access to Awbury’s bespoke credit solutions through locally issued policies.

It also allows global banks, asset managers and companies already served by Awbury to extend coverage to their Japanese subsidiaries, operations and counterparties.

Policies are issued by Lloyd’s Japan, the Lloyd’s licensed general agent in the country, for risks underwritten by Awbury Syndicate 2025. The syndicate underwrites each risk for its own account, applying the credit analysis used across Awbury’s global business.

Alex Dubitsky, chief executive of Awbury Group, said: “Japan is one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial markets, and from today Awbury Syndicate 2025 underwrites there.

“Japanese institutions face challenges similar to those our clients bring us everywhere else: credit concentrations, counterparty exposures, capital constraints.

“We design insurance that solves those problems, and we now deliver it in Japan on locally issued policies.”

The business is being underwritten in Tokyo by Masahiro Oshige, chief executive of Awbury Japan, who has been seconded to Lloyd’s Japan as the dedicated underwriter for Syndicate 2025.

Mr Dubitsky added: “We have spent 15 years solving credit and financial risk problems for the world’s leading financial institutions.

“That experience now comes to Japan: to the Japanese operations of the clients we already serve and, for the first time, to Japanese institutions themselves.”

Emma Loynes, Lloyd’s chief executive for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said Awbury’s arrival would expand the specialist underwriting expertise available through the Lloyd’s market.

She said it also demonstrated the value of the Lloyd’s platform in “connecting global risk capital with local market access”.

Awbury Group is a specialty insurance and principal investments group focused on credit and financial risks.

It serves banks, asset managers, insurers and companies globally through Awbury Insurance in Bermuda and Awbury Syndicate 2025 at Lloyd’s.