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The Once and Future C&F - C&F Now
The Dream Team.
Gary McGeddy started the A&H Division in his basement. In 2024, the A&H team will profitably write over $2 billion of gross premium. He and I started our careers with Fairfax the same month in 2000. Gary and his loyal team of associates and partners were along for the whole ride: TIG’s downgrade, Fairmont Specialty’s formation, the merger into C&F. All the while, Gary and his A&H team kept scrapping away — reinventing and upgrading, delivering results and developing their franchise and their people. If that were not enough, in early 2022 Gary noticed that the valuations for pet insurance companies were skyrocketing. While Fairfax is not usually inclined to sell any of their insurance businesses — especially one that was performing as well as Pet — they agreed to see what it might
fetch in the marketplace. Thus was born C&F’s first unicorn: we sold the pet insurance business to JAB for $1.4 billion. Gary was good for two acorns (or maybe one acorn and one unicorn). I am excited to see what he will come up with next. Tom Bredahl made the leap from a relatively safe reinsurance underwriting job at Odyssey Re right into the challenging environment that was First Mercury’s restructuring. Several months in, I moved on to run C&F, leaving Tom to complete the actual hard work of building a business. In 2024, the Surplus & Specialty Division will profitably underwrite $1.4 billion of gross premium. Tom and his team were ready with perfect timing to hit what has been an unprecedented shift in business to the non-admitted market — the
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