Job Moves and Senior Hires 10.07.2023

Running late with this one, but here is the weekly round up of senior level appointments;

KEOGHS

Keoghs, a Davies business, announced it is strengthening its Complex Injury London team with the appointment of new partner, Phill Bratt. Phill joins Keoghs from Weightmans, with over 12 years of experience, specialising in catastrophic personal injury claims which has seen him represent clients in some of the highest value personal injury cases. Having spent the majority of his career working on cases with maximum severity brain damage, tetraplegia and amputation injuries, Phill is a champion of rehabilitation and early intervention.

Keoghs Complex Injury division has grown exponentially over the last two years including with the arrival of partner, Catherine Kober, who joined from DWF in 2021. Catherine has built up the law firm’s presence in the London market, growing the team organically and through a number of strategic lateral hires.

KEOGHS CREDIT HIRE

Anne Chapman joins Keoghs, bringing with her a wealth of experience, having acted for insurers in credit hire claims for over two decades. She has worked on some of the most high-profile cases including Zakir Ali v Spirit International, Pattni v First Leicester Buses and Kadir v Thompson.

In addition, Anne will bring with her a team of five lawyers who will all sit within the Keoghs’ Tactical Credit Hire division, led by Partner, Gary Herring, further strengthening and expanding the firm’s market-leading niche strategic offering which targets errant opponent behaviour with pioneering strategic initiatives designed to change behaviour for the long term. Since its inception in 2019 the division has seen exponential growth and it now acts for 15 insurers, representing approximately 60 percent of the motor insurance market.

TOKIO MARINE KILN

Leading specialist insurer, Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK), today announces several strategically significant appointments and changes as part of plans to expand its presence in the cyber market.

Aoife Woulfe, formerly head of intellectual property (IP) at TMK, has stepped into the position of head of delegated cyber. In her previous role as head of IP, Woulfe transformed TMK’s IP underwriting process and improved efficiency, resulting in the proposition becoming a market leader by both line and book size. She brings a wealth of experience into the new cyber role, where she will focus on developing TMK’s small and medium enterprise cyber offering.

With this change, TMK’s IP book will be led by Ellie Webb.

Paul Gooch, previously head of cyber open market, will now oversee TMK’s large account portfolio as divisional head of large account cyber. Paul has been with TMK since 2009 and was recently named Underwriters’ Leading Underwriter 2023 by Insurindex. 

TMK will further bolster the cyber team with new appointments. Daniel Moore joins the London team as a cyber underwriter from 18 July. A former barrister, Moore joins from Arch Insurance International where he served most recently as cyber and technology underwriter. He has also worked for Clyde & Co and AmTrust.

Sam Bye will also join as a cyber underwriter, based in Singapore, from 1 August. Bye brings more than 10 years’ experience of underwriting cyber, technology and professional indemnity risks to the role. He joins from AXA XL, where he held the position of cyber & technology PI manager, responsible for portfolio exposure, and implementing underwriting guidelines and ransomware risk management strategy.

ALLIANZ HOLDINGS

Allianz has announced the appointment of Benjamin Turner as chief information officer (CIO) for Allianz Holdings in the UK. Reporting to chief operations officer Ashish Patel, Ben will have responsibility for overseeing IT for all of Allianz UK and will also serve as a member of the Operations IT executive committee.

Ben joined Allianz in 2020 through the Legal & General (L&G GI) acquisition retaining his role as chief technology officer (CTO) for L&G GI where he had responsibility for IT, information security and data protection.

ALLIANZ COMMERCIAL

Allianz confirmed today the regional leader for the important growth region Asia: Christian Sandric will join Allianz Commercial from AIG as Commercial Managing Director Asia in Singapore with effect from 1 September 2023, subject to regulatory approval. Mark Mitchell, the current Regional Managing Director for Asia for Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS), will continue in his role until Christian Sandric joins, before stepping down to pursue opportunities outside Allianz Group.

Allianz Commercial Asia serves clients across this region, covering key markets such as China (including Hong Kong), India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. In Asia, Allianz is targeting significant growth opportunities across the full Commercial segment which entails mid-sized companies, large multinational corporations and specialty business leveraging its extensive geographical network, enhanced digital capabilities and strong product and services portfolio which includes Multinational and Risk Consulting, as well as Global Industry and Alternative Risk Transfer solutions.

UMAL

UMAL, the leading provider of Risk Management and Insurance Services to the Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) sector, is pleased to announce a significant change in leadership. After six years of spearheading the modernisation and growth of the company as CEO, Paul Cusition will be handing over the reins to James Roberts, who will assume the role of CEO Designate, effective from September 4th, 2023.

During his tenure as CEO, Paul Cusition has successfully positioned UMAL as a major force, serving both member and non-member institutions within the HE and FE sector. Acknowledging his invaluable contributions, Paul will remain on the Board of UMAL and transition to the role of Chair in 2024, after handing over to James Roberts.

ASTON LARK

Leading insurance broker Aston Lark, a Howden company, has made another key hire as it looks to expand its offering within Wales. Alex Davies, from Brynmawr, has joined Aston Lark as an Account Executive and is part of a growing team responsible for expanding the company’s client base within this new region.

Alex joins with over 13 years of experience in the industry, beginning her career at Abergavenny firm FR Ball, where she worked with both commercial and personal clients, and led on the creation of the firm’s successful school absence insurance arm. After 11 years, Alex made the move to national firm Thomas Carroll, where she worked on a range of commercial insurance matters, as well as again helping the company to establish its staff absence insurance offering.

BMS Re

BMS Re, the specialty reinsurance arm of the global broking group BMS, recently announced the appointment of Steve Housse as managing director and facultative practice lead and Dan Shea as senior vice president of property facultative. Both will be based in Atlanta, GA.

Steve Housse, a well-known leader in the property facultative space, joins from Guy Carpenter where he led the US property practice. Housse will spearhead the expansion of the US property and energy offering. Dan Shea joins from Lockton Re – with expertise in the hybrid, facultative obligatory, and industrial sectors.

James Elliott, previously managing director at Gallagher Re, will also be joining BMS Re as managing director and facultative practice lead and be based in the UK once his current contractual obligations are completed in March 2024.  As global leads, Elliott and Housse will work in partnership with the Group’s business leaders to build a global facultative network.

Ian Gormley, UK CEO of BMS Group, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Steve, Dan and James to BMS Re. Their expertise and experience are invaluable and will be instrumental in providing creative solutions, better serving our clients. The global facultative practice initiative will revolutionize the way that we work with insurance and reinsurance clients alike across BMS and the global market. Our culture and lack of silos continue to attract talent to BMS and enables us to deliver innovative solutions across territories and specialisms at a time when our clients need it most.’

SPRING INSURE

Spring Insure, the financial and professional lines MGA, has boosted its team of specialist underwriters under plans to significantly expand its footprint in the UK and European FinPro sector.

James O’Halloran has joined as Development Underwriter with responsibility for driving forward Spring Insure’s broker relationships across all lines (financial institutions, professional indemnity, directors & officers and cyber) in both the UK and Europe. A key part of his role will be engaging with new brokers across the UK and Europe who do not currently have a trading relationship with the MGA.

James, who has over eight years insurance market experience, joins from CFC Underwriting where he was responsible for developing its Canadian PI portfolio. Based out of Spring Insure’s London office, James will report to Group CEO Tristan Sargeaunt.

Charlie Cooper joins as Underwriter for financial institutions, fintech and cyber insurance programmes for both commercial and financial services SME businesses following rapid growth in the portfolio. With over six years insurance experience he joins from broker Protean Risk, and will report to Bethany Thomas, FI Team Leader, based in London.

The two new hires bring Spring Insure’s growing team to 27 in total spread across its offices in London, Dublin, and Guernsey.

SEDGWICK

Sedgwick, a leading global provider of technology-enabled risk, benefits and integrated business solutions, has launched operations in the Mauritian market, with best-in-class offerings in loss adjusting and catastrophe response, specialist assistance for business interruptions, forensic engineering and environmental and fire claims.

PEN UNDERWRITING

Pen Underwriting has continued investment in its new marine specialism – following its April entry into the sector through the acquisition of five specialist marine managing general agents (MGAs) – with the appointment of Munro Anderson as Head of Operations at Vessel Protect, with effect from 1 July 2023.

Bringing 15 years’ experience, Munro joins from real-time risk intelligence and maritime security solutions provider Dryad Global where he was a founding partner. The technology-led business was set up in 2018 to help maritime clients mitigate risk and simplify security decision-making processes. Prior to that, Munro spent eight years working in intelligence and security at the UK Ministry of Defence.

Established in 2020, Vessel Protect specialises in underwriting marine war risks and kidnap & ransom (piracy), tailoring insurance protection to complex client risk and exposure while offering swift, simplified quote-and-bind cover via its digital platform.

SKYLINE PARTNERS

Skyline Partners Ltd., the parametric laboratory which works with underwriters, brokers, institutions, and affinity groups to develop solutions to a wide variety of insurability challenges, has engaged broking veteran Ken MacDonald to support Skyline’s clients in product development, distribution, and funding, through MacDonald’s newly launched Ri3K Consulting.

MacDonald has more than 35 years’ experience leading and growing businesses across myriad specialty re/insurance product areas, and particular expertise in alternative risk transfer in the global large corporate segment. He was most recently Executive Chairman, Head of Corporate Development, and an equity partner at Miller Insurance. Prior to joining Miller, he was Chief Executive Officer at Aon Global UK, after spending nearly 14 years at Swiss Re’s International Risk Management Group (IRMG).