Lou Iglesias is president of Allied World North America, part of Allied World Assurance Co. Holdings A.G. The company placed its Bermuda operations in its North American business unit this year and opened offices in Miami and Toronto last year, building out its North American operations. On April 1, Allied World also closed on a $193 million purchase of the Hong Kong and Singapore operations of RSA Insurance Group P.L.C. Mr. Iglesias recently spoke with Business Insurance Associate Editor Matthew Lerner about the company's latest moves and current market conditions and opportunities. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: What was the impetus to move Bermuda into the North American business group?

A: When you look at the Bermuda business that we have, they're North American clients — North American-based clients make up 95% of our Bermuda platform. So, we may be writing a piece of that North American client's business in our U.S. operation and a piece of that North American client's business in our Bermuda operation. So consolidating that relationship was important to us and that was part of the decision.

Further, it makes sense from a distribution platform standpoint to have Bermuda included as part of our North American operations given our business relationships with large brokers such as Marsh, Aon and Willis.

Finally, the major coverages in Bermuda in the professional liability, property/casualty and health care areas align perfectly with how we line up our four segments in the U.S. It also gives our clients a clean point of reference when they're looking at Allied World in totality.

Q: For 2015, where have you found the major challenges?

A: Our major challenges are probably pretty similar to the major challenges that are going on on a macro basis. It's a constant effort for us to figure out which lines of business we want to allocate our capital to. Right now ... I think we have challenges in the property marketplace that we're addressing, simply by utilizing a little less capital in that business. We also have some challenges based on what's happening with the wholesale changes in the health care industry and the changes that are coming out of the Affordable Care Act.

Q: Conversely, where are the bright spots?

A: We feel very strongly about our geographical expansion throughout North America as we continue to grow our distribution. On the product side, our excess casualty franchise in the U.S. and Bermuda continues to perform well, and we're still able to get rate in that market. It's not as much rate as we were able to get a year ago or two years ago, but it's still a good positive rate so we feel like we've got some tailwind there, and we feel strongly about that marketplace. We feel like we have great opportunities in professional lines in the (directors and officers liability insurance) space, in the (errors and omissions insurance) space, and we're allocating a healthy amount of capital to that business. Our Defense Base Act business, along with our newer specialty lines, including environmental, construction and (mergers and acquisitions), continues to be bright spots for us as well.

We're also looking closely at the cyber space. We have a cyber book of business in the U.S. and a cyber book of business in Bermuda, and we're looking at some additional opportunities there. My general feeling is there's an opportunity for our whole industry to put more capital to work. We just have to be intelligent about figuring out the best way to do that.

Q: How much did the acquisition of RSA's Hong Kong and Singapore operations add to the company?

A: The RSA acquisition for us is just a great platform, an established platform in Singapore and Hong Kong, which is a part of the world that is very difficult to go into organically. It's a part of the world that we're very interested in growing our business in.