Nicholas Berry
Partner
Norton Rose Fulbright LLP
Related services and key industries
Biography
Nicholas Berry is a corporate lawyer based in London.
His practice has a particular focus on the insurance sector and he has over 15 years of experience of advising across a range of transactional and regulatory matters, including acting for private equity sponsors, start-ups, domestic and international insurers and reinsurers, investment banks and other industry investors and participants (including Lloyd's market participants) in relation to M&A, fundraisings, buy-outs, start-ups and product launches and structured insurance and reinsurance arrangements.
Nicholas is ranked as a "Leading Individual" for Corporate and Regulatory Insurance and TMT: Fintech by Legal 500, 2024. He is described in Legal 500 as "one of the best, if not the best corporate lawyer I have worked with. Knowledgeable both in terms of legal knowledge and sector, commercial and manages a great and reliable team. I would work with him every time if I could…"
He devised and co-ordinates our Insurathon innovation events, where InsurTech start-ups pitch for a prize fund of up to £50,000. These events have been held annually since 2017 and have enabled Norton Rose Fulbright to provide over £250,000 of support to UK InsurTech companies.
Chambers UK 2024 has ranked him in its non-contentious insurance category, with a client stating "He's a superb lawyer with an easy ability to balance corporate and insurance questions." Business Today News ranked Nicholas as one of the top 10 non-contentious insurance lawyers shaping the UK's industry in 2023.
Professional experience
Collapse all- Solicitor, qualified in England & Wales 2008
Advising:
M&A and Private Equity
- Advising Aquiline on its acquisition of a controlling stake in Ripe Insurance, a UK based MGA with a focus on specialist and small business insurance
- Aquiline and Lloyd's of London insurer ERS - on a $350m fundraise to enable ERS to expand its strategy to underwrite specialty (re)insurance business
- Aquiline - on its investment in and subsequent exit from wholesale broker Beach & Associates
- Aquiline - on the acquisition of ERS, a Lloyd's of London syndicate writing speciality motor insurance
- Brickell Insurance Holdings, an affiliate of investor 777 Partners LLC - in relation to its £482m bid for Randall Quilter ("R&Q") the non life insurance, reinsurance legacy and run off acquisition specialist
- A global insurer - on the sale of its South African business
- A global insurer - on the acquisition of a telematics and connected car business with international operations
- A global insurer - on its minority investment in a pay-as-you-go motor insurer
- A global insurer - on its strategic acquisition of a digital health and wellbeing platform as part of its newly launched healthcare business
- Primary Group - on the sale of the commercial lines MGA UK General to JC Flowers
- Primary Group backed MGA Now Health International - on its acquisition of Best Doctor's Inc private medical insurance business
- AXA - in relation to its £2.75bn disposal to Resolution Ltd of certain of its UK life businesses
ILS / ART
- Advising a on a multi-year stop-loss transaction with a global reinsurer which took the form of an innovative hybrid transaction using a transformer vehicle.
- An investor - on a number of bespoke ILS investments in relation to wildfire risk
- Stable Price - on its launch in Bermuda and establishment of a collateralized insurer class of company and related risk protection arrangements to provide protection to Stable's clients
- An insurer client - on two separate parametric programs relating to balance sheet de-risking
- MyLotto24 - on the creation and renewal of its innovative ILS Hoplon coverage (Hoplon I, II & III)
- A Lloyd's members' agent - on the use of funding structure using the new UK ILS regime
- MGA Now Health International - on its global capacity arrangements and reinsurance arrangements with RGA
- A lead investor - in relation to the issue of the Munich Re reinsurance sidecar Eden Re catbonds, covering US weather and earthquake risk
- Lottoland - on its pay-out loss coverage through collateralised reinsurance using a Gibraltar cell company to transform the risk to investors in the first transaction of its kind in Gibraltar
InsurTech
- Tech-enabled commercial motor insurer Zego - in its $150m Series C valuing the business at $1.1bn, making Zego the UK's first InsurTech "Unicorn"
- Nexus Mutual, a peer-to-peer risk coverage defi application - on the ethereum blockchain, which is one the first businesses to capitalize a risk pool through cryptocurrency and now has capital assets reported to be in excess of $200m, on its platform launch and token sale (ICO)
- Arch - on the creation of a bespoke insurance product and a new consortium dedicated to underwriting digital asset risks with limits of up to $150m, BlueVault is the first consortium of its kind to cover digital assets held in secure vaults
- Three global insurers and a global bank - on investments into and strategic partnerships with InsurTechs
- NRF Insurathon winners Flock Cover, Pluto, Riskbook (now Supercede) and Anansi - on various matters
- MS Amlin - in relation to Insurwave, one of the highest profile blockchain platforms in the marine insurance sector involving Maersk, EY, Willis Towers Watson, XL Catlin, MS Amlin and Microsoft
- AIG and Standard Chartered - on the insurance regulatory aspects relating to the use of blockchain in their trade finance platform PoC
Next Generation Partner, corporate and regulatory insurance, The Legal 500, 2022
Up and Coming Individual, Chambers and Partners, 2022
"…is pragmatic and thinks about the big picture without getting lost in the details…He is commercial, always available and when you work with him you get a lot of things done, it is very efficient."
Leading Individual, FinTech, The Legal 500, 2022
- Host, Insurathon, London, since 2017.
- Crypto Insurance Challenge: How Can I Insure What I Don't Understand?, PLUS D&O Symposium, New York, February 6, 2019.
- Co-host, Navigating the InsurTech Revolution, Bermuda, September 20, 2018.
- Artificial Intelligence, The Liability Risks at the Liability Underwriters Group Conference, September 12, 2018.
- The Insurance of Crypto Assets and Businesses, Lloyd's Market Talk to Lloyd's Syndicates, August 16, 2018.
- Co-host, Smart Shipping and InsurTech - Reshaping Marine Insurance event co-hosted by Norton Rose Fulbright, MS Amlin and InsTech London, June 13, 2018.
- The Future of smart contracts in insurance, the FCA's InsurTech conference, March 28-29, 2017.