Australis Group Underwriting has stopped writing new marine business with immediate effect, so it can focus on developing other sectors.

It will continue to support current marine policyholders.

“Australis entered the marine insurance market around the same time as several other agencies and insurers,” Australis and SRS Underwriting Agency CEO Paul Lynam told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“We’ve found the market is too crowded and over-competitive and there simply isn’t the scale available in the Australian market to justify us continuing to write the business.

“While our group has considerable global expertise in marine insurance, we decided the time and effort required to build this economic market niche in marine would be better spent building profitable operations in other business classes.”