Convex Group Ltd, the new Bermudian-based insurer launched by industry veterans Stephen Catlin and Paul Brand, has signed a contract with an outsourcing company to deal with its back-office needs.

The agreement entails Indian-based WNS (Holdings) Ltd becoming a long-term strategic partner of Convex, the companies said in press release today.

WNS will build what the company describes as a “Platform + BPM [business process management] as-a-service”, including support services relating to operations for insurance, reinsurance, claims, finance and human resources.

In an interview with The Royal Gazette in April, Mr Catlin said the new specialty insurer and reinsurer would employ “upwards of 50 people” at its Bermuda headquarters, once up to full staff by November.

He said then that the company would “do an enormous amount of outsourcing on a horizontal basis”, meaning there would be one outsourcer for everything.

“Lots of people outsource bits and pieces, but nobody in insurance does a horizontal outsource, as far as we’re aware,” Mr Catlin said in the interview. “It saves us about 3 per cent on expenses.”

WNS has nearly 40,000 employees, 11,000 of whom work in insurance, working for 350 clients around the world and state-of-the-art technology.

The upshot of the outsourcing is an absence of back-office jobs in Bermuda, although the island gains many higher value roles.

“Employment costs here are as high as they are anywhere,” Mr Catlin said. “Any people you employ here, or in London, have got to be adding value to the balance sheet. Those servicing the balance sheet can do it from elsewhere.”

Convex, which has an A- rating from AM Best, will also have an underwriting operation in London.

In today’s press release, Adrian Spieler, group chief operating officer of Convex, said: “Our team at Convex is excited to be building the ‘insurance company of the future’ free from legacy systems and processes.

“We believe WNS has the operational excellence needed to support the execution of our business strategy. We are building a platform which is flexible, scalable and efficient and WNS will be a great partner to support us on our journey.”

Keshav Murugesh, group CEO of WNS, said: “This is indeed a proud moment for our combined teams and a culmination of the focused efforts and collaboration, towards co-creating a unique end-to-end ‘Insurance in a Box’ product solution and unique value proposition for the Convex Group.

“We are delighted to have been chosen as the strategic partner by the Convex Group and I am confident that we are going to set new industry benchmarks together.”

The new insurer’s invested capital comes from the Convex management team and Onex Partners V, a fund of Toronto-based private-equity firm Onex Corporation, as well as Canadian-based pension investment manager PSP Investments, in addition to a consortium of co-investors.