DUAL Group has unified its transactional risk operations into a single global practice at a commercially precise moment. North American R&W rates rose 16% year-on-year in 2025 after three years of declines, claims frequency and severity both rose, and Marsh placed a record US$91.6 billion in transactional risk limits - up 34% from 2024 - as global M&A deal values reached nearly US$5 trillion. A market that has absorbed claims experience and begun repricing, while simultaneously seeing record deal volumes driving record limit placements, is one where a consolidated global platform with single-access capacity across product lines and regions has a specific competitive advantage over a network of independently operating units.

The unified practice brings together more than 80 underwriters across 11 jurisdictions in the Americas, UK, Europe and ANZ under one operating model, backed long-term by Liberty Specialty Markets as lead capacity provider through a global binder. The practice spans warranty and indemnity, representations and warranties, tax, contingent risk, title and climate risk and resilience lines, with shared technology, analytics and governance frameworks alongside dedicated regional claims teams and local underwriting authority. DUAL has set a target of £500 million in gross written premium from the practice by 2030.

Richard Clapham, DUAL Group's chief executive, said the market shift had raised the bar for specialist underwriting. "As deals become larger, increasingly cross-border and more sophisticated, the need for specialist underwriting and consistent, high-quality execution has never been greater," he said.

The market behind the timing

Global transactional risk insurance has grown rapidly across all of DUAL's core markets. In Asia-Pacific, deal activity has expanded the demand for W&I and contingent risk cover beyond its traditional concentration in Australia and New Zealand into markets including Japan, South Korea and Singapore. In North America, the R&W market has matured into a standard deal component across middle-market and large-cap transactions, with the 16% rate increase in 2025 reflecting accumulated claims experience from prior years rather than a capacity shortage. In Canada, cross-border deal activity with the US has sustained demand for R&W and tax liability cover that tracks North American rather than purely domestic market conditions.

The specialist transactional risk insurer count in the UK and Europe has roughly doubled over five years, per Gallagher, and similar competitive deepening is visible in the ANZ and North American markets as MGAs and Lloyd's coverholders have expanded their transactional risk capabilities. In that environment, a unified operating model creates a single access point to combined capacity across product lines and regions - a structural differentiator for clients placing complex cross-border transactions who would otherwise need to engage multiple underwriting platforms across jurisdictions.

The operating model and its commercial logic

Paul Smith, group head of transactional risk at DUAL, said the unified model was designed to meet demand for multi-product solutions on complex transactions. "Insurance is already a critical component of the deal process but we are now seeing increasing demand from clients for complex multi-product solutions backed by sophisticated claims handling processes," he said. Smith said the arrangement draws on scale benefits including shared expertise and data while keeping local market knowledge at the core of underwriting decisions - the specific combination that makes consolidation commercially rational without eroding the jurisdictional expertise that transactional risk underwriting requires across markets as different as Australia, Canada and continental Europe.

Stephen Tompson, head of supercoverholders at Liberty Specialty Markets, said certainty of coverage had become a priority in the current deal environment. "In such a volatile business environment, having certainty of risk coverage around deals is crucial for a streamlined and efficient process," he said.