Bermuda’s Validus Holdings is buying up another reinsurer.Validus said it’s acquiring closely held Bermuda-based Longhorn Re to help expand in crop coverage.Jon Levenson, Validus executive vice-president, told The Royal Gazette yesterday: “Validus is acquiring Longhorn Re but terms have not been disclosed.”Validus has increased its investment in US crop coverage as a drought-generated surge in claims boosts policy prices.In an interview with Bloomberg, Validus chairman and CEO Ed Noonan said: “(Longhorn’s) sole business was crop reinsurance and people we knew and have known for some time like the way they do business.”He added: “We see prices becoming more attractive (in crop insurance). We are a more sizeable crop insurer going forward than we have been historically.”Longhorn, which is privately owned by the former stockholders of Producers Ag Insurance Group Inc, began writing business in 2011. It is based at Aon House.Mr Noonan said Validus has written $55 million in crop-insurance business since January 1. Policies in the US Midwest and South cover crops including corn and soybeans, he said.The worst drought since the 1930s led to record payouts on crop-insurance claims. Farmers collected more than $13 billion in the crop year through January 28, exceeding the record of $10.84 billion set in 2011, according to a Risk Management Agency report published on the US Department of Agriculture website.Validus’s recent acquisition of Flagstone Reinsurance gave additional scale in Validus Re’s core property catastrophe reinsurance business.