Steadfast and Hollard have joined forces to back a new specialist underwriting agency focusing on emerging risks.

Sydney-based Emergence has been co-founded by former Suncorp executives Troy Filipcevic and Chris Stallard, who are both directors of the business.

Steadfast and Hollard have invested in the company, with Hollard also taking on an underwriting role.

Emergence’s first product will be cyber-event protection, designed for SME clients.

Mr Filipcevic told insuranceNEWS.com.au he and Mr Stallard have been working on the project for 18 months.

“We’d been kicking it around for quite a while and then we realised it had the potential to get off the ground. I was having breakfast with [Steadfast CEO] Robert Kelly about a year ago and I pitched the idea to him.

“He said, ‘Yes, I’m in,’ and the next piece of the puzzle was security, and we settled on Hollard. We’ve been working on it full-time since September.”

Mr Filipcevic says the initial idea was to focus purely on cyber, but it was decided that would be too narrow.

“Cyber is out there but we have a whole pipeline of products and ideas to follow,” he said.

He says Emergence will be as much about support and peripheral services as products, and policy wordings have been created from scratch in plain language.

“We have a 24/7 response that clients can contact as soon as they suspect a cyber attack.

“You don’t have to wait to suffer a loss first, as you do with other insurers.”

Hollard COO Richard Heilig told insuranceNEWS.com.au Emergence “ticked all the right boxes. We have a history of supporting entrepreneurs and we’re looking to support underwriting agencies in niche areas.”

He says it is the first partnership with Steadfast in an agency business “but there may be more in future. Steadfast brings the distribution, which is one of the core elements an agency needs to achieve success.”

Mr Heilig declined to reveal the percentage of Emergence shares held by Hollard, but says each party has “a meaningful stake”.