Shepherd Binds Primary GL-Only OCIP with $10M Excess and 15% of $840M TIV Builder's Risk Placement on OH Manufacturing Campus with McGriff
The client and the project
The insured is building a greenfield manufacturing campus in rural Ohio, with a total project budget of roughly $774.5 million. First production is targeted for August 2028.
Construction includes a large structural steel paper machine hall surrounded by pre-engineered and tilt-up structures for warehousing, chemical storage, and maintenance. These assets will be supported by a dedicated water treatment plant, electrical substation, gas service, and rail connection. Construction will peak in 2026 and 2027 with highest trade density and major crane lifts for the primary paper machine components. Both the Casualty and Builder’s Risk policies cover the full 32-month term.
The placement challenge
The broker needed to fill out a quota-share Builder’s Risk placement on very short notice to hold the schedule. The casualty side required a fast and flexible underwriting approach that gave the broker and client options as they considered their changing needs.
McGriff, a Marsh & McLennan Agency Company, was looking for one market that could solve for both.
How McGriff brought it together
McGriff, a longstanding Shepherd broker partner, brought both the casualty and builder’s risk to Shepherd. McGriff came in with a direct ask on the strength of the relationship: this placement required the speed Shepherd is known for with competitive terms off the bat.
The Builder's Risk moved first and moved fast. Shepherd's underwriting team was able to provide meaningful quota-share capacity on a follow basis.
The casualty side took a more collaborative approach to land, with more than a dozen quote iterations over the following months: deductible and retention options, completed-value thresholds revised as project figures changed, and an owner-controlled structure tested against a GC-held alternative before the program settled on the OCIP that ultimately bound.
Shepherd was there each step of the way to find the best solution for the client and the broker.
What Shepherd did on this placement
On the Builder's Risk, Shepherd returned a follow-form quote in three business days on the $840 million TIV (fast, given the modeling and loss-control review required on both sides of the layer), and wrote catastrophe coverage and Leg 3 completed-value protection across the full term. The Builder's Risk was also one of Shepherd's first written on Intact paper.
On the casualty side, Shepherd wrote the primary general liability at $2M / $4M / $4M and wrote the $10M excess.
Across both placements, Shepherd was well positioned to do everything the project needed at once: hold a same-day builder's risk position and provide a fast, flexible casualty solution, giving the owner one core market across the life of construction. Phase 1 of the campus is insured through to March 2029.
