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EC News (21 March 2019)

  • Publish Date: Posted about 5 years ago
  • Author:by Alan Jarque

Round-up of the weekly news and developments from the global (re)insurance market with stories from Chaucer, Willis Towers Watson, Beazley and more.

 

Antares appoints Campbell as head of financial institutions

Lloyd’s Managing Agency Antares, appoints Martin Campbell head of financial institutions. As a seasoned veteran with 30 years’ experience, Campbell first joined the Lloyd’s market in 1990 where he worked most recently at The Channel Syndicate and was one of the founding partners in 2011. 

His appointment is effective immediately.

Antares CEO Joe Battle commented on the appointment: “Antares has an established Financial Institutions team, with a wealth of underwriting talent and an excellent track record. Martin is a recognised market leader in the space, with a deep understanding of client needs and the evolving financial products market. Under Martin’s leadership, I am confident the business will build on its strengths and continue to flourish.”

Campbell said: “Antares has an established reputation within the financial lines space, with an excellent team and a diversified book of business. I look forward to working with Joe and the team to build out our offering.”

 

Chaucer partners with marine insurtech Concirrus to drive underwriting change

Chaucer, the specialty international (re)insurance group has announced its new partnership with marine insurtech company Concirrus to focus on driving technological change in the marine insurance market and enhance its underwriting while also adding value for clients.

The new partnership will allow Chaucer to benefit from the use of Concirrus’ data analytics platform, Quest Marine which analyses billions of historical and real-time marine data to look at marine risk in a more targeted.

Clients can combine these insights with their existing underwriting knowledge to support a more effective portfolio segmentation but also a differentiated approach to risk selection and pricing to other competitors in the market.

Philip Graham, head of marine at Chaucer said: “Deploying the Concirrus data analytics platform, Quest Marine, will help us to deliver greater intrinsic value to clients as we enhance our existing underwriting expertise with data-driven behavioural risk factors.”

Adding: “Bespoke risk customisation is the ultimate goal if we want to maximise client benefits and aim to stay ahead of the competition.”

Andrew Yeoman, (CEO) at Concirrus, said: “It’s great to be working with Chaucer – an organisation that clearly recognises the vital role technology will play in the future of the insurance market. Our Quest Marine platform is making its mark on the industry with organisations spanning the whole of the sector taking stock of the many benefits it can offer,”

He continues: “We’re also delighted that Chaucer will join the Concirrus Power20 – the aim of which is to create a community of like-minded visionaries from the marine insurance market to work in collaboration to achieve long term success. We want to bring together the marine (re)insurance market and make a difference – that is, to help the market return to profitability.”

 

Willis Towers Watson appoints new head of broking

Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has appointed David Ripton as head of broking, Global Marine in its corporate risk and broking unit.

Ripton joins WTW from Marsh, where he held the position of CEO for Marine UK since 2014, bringing with him over 30 years of marine insurance experience in the global marketplace.

He will make up part of the Global Marine management team and will be responsible for leading the global marine broking strategy, including facility development panels and a greater user of data and analytics to assist the global marine client base.

Ripton will report to Ben Abraham, global head of marine, as well as Philip Smaje, global head of broking.

Abraham said: “Today’s announcement exemplifies the continued investment we are making in our Global Marine business. In a rapidly evolving marine market David will be in a unique position to drive innovation and client value within a truly global marine broking structure.”

Smaje added: “Today’s announcement reflects our ongoing commitment to deliver the best client solutions through broking excellence. David brings extensive broking and business experience which will strengthen Willis Towers Watson’s stakeholder relationships and ensure we provide specialist broking expertise to deliver the best results for our clients.”

 

Lloyd’s Channel Syndicate announces new chief commercial officer

Channel Syndicate 2015 at Lloyd’s has appointed Matt Ackland as chief commercial officer (CCO) of the London platform.

Ackland will begin this role with immediate effect and will be responsible for overseeing the coordination and planning of activities across both Channel and Scor UK, reporting to Stuart McMurdo, CEO of Channel Syndicate.

Prior to securing the role he has worked for Channel Syndicate for six years starting in underwriting operations from 2013, before being promoted to head of strategy and planning in October 2015. Before to joining Channel, Ackland was the financial lines business operations manager at Aspen.

McMurdo comments: “As our efforts to bring in a pipeline of new opportunities grow we need to ensure we maintain our focus on deal flow and Matt is well positioned to manage deal flow across all aspects of the London Platform.”

“Matt has become a valuable member of the Channel team. He will provide tremendous support to our active underwriters for Channel and the London platform as well as driving the successful implementation of strategic initiatives set by the Excom.”

 

Beazley strengthens cyber insurance for UK businesses

Beazley has enhanced its cyber polices in the UK to provide businesses of all sizes and sectors insurance and risk management cover services and the commitment to deliver, user-friendly policies to plan and manage a cyber breach.

To make cover clear to understand for brokers and customers, the InfoSec and Beazley Breach Response (BBR) forms have been streamlined. First-party covers, including cyber extortion, data recovery costs, business interruption, contingent business interruption and e-crime, have been incorporated into the main policy rather than being added by endorsement.

Beazley's complete set of cyber solutions is designed to protect UK businesses on all fronts. The access to BBR has now been extended to give larger organisations the option to use the services under their policies. Via the BBR services portal clients can access a wealth of resources for incident response planning, employee training, compliance, and security best practices. Newsletters and live expert webinars provide education on the latest threats, preventive steps and regulatory requirements.

The policy provides breach response services for up to five million individuals for small to medium-sized businesses. It also covers payment card industry costs, regulatory defence and penalties, and first-party and e-crime cover.

The information security and privacy policy for larger businesses, Infosec, covers fees and costs for legal and forensic services, notification services, call centre services, credit monitoring, identity monitoring or other personal fraud or loss prevention solutions, and public relations and crisis management if a loss occurs.

Paul Bantick, head of cyber and executive risks for London and international at Beazley, said: “Businesses are playing catch-up with highly adaptable cyber criminals. Our role is to ensure our clients have the support they need to defend themselves against attacks and data breaches.”

 

Castel promotes Transact Risk to standalone underwriting cell

Castel Underwriting Agencies has promoted Transact Risk Partners from a division within Castel Speciality portfolio to a standalone underwriting cell on its managing general agent platform.

Since launching in October 2017 Transact has seen a significantly sustained growth according to Sammy Shihab who leads the Trasact team and based in Castel’s European branch office in Amsterdam where the business provides warranty and indemnity insurance for merger and acquisition transactions and tax risk insurance for tax liabilities in Europe.

Castel Specialty provides the infrastructure, capacity and business support required to enable experienced underwriters to underwrite their own books of business.

Mark Birrell, CEO of Castel commented: “The success of Transact further demonstrates Castel’s commitment to supporting entrepreneurial underwriters and teams and ability to support them in quickly establishing and growing profitable niche businesses,”

Shihab said: “We have seen strong and sustained growth in the portfolio since becoming part of Castel. We have expanded the team and brought in experienced underwriters who have the dedicated in country expertise needed to respond to this increasing demand.”

He added: “The transition of Transact into a standalone underwriting cell, with the continuing support of Castel, will enable us to further expand our specialist capabilities, build on our success and continue to grow profitable opportunities across Europe.”

 

Hyperion Atlantic Challenge achieves new world records and raises over £170,000 for charity

Hyperion Insurance Group announces in a press release that RKH Speciality’s Alex Simpson and crewmate Jamie Gordon have rowed across the Atlantic in a time of 37 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes breaking the world record for the fastest recorded two-man Atlantic crossing while Simpson becomes the youngest person to row across three oceans at 27 years old.

Since beginning their journey in Gran Canaria on Tuesday 29 January the pair have roughly covered 4,800km to reach their destination in pursuit of their record-breaking goal.

The Hyperion Atlantic Challenge has raised £170,742 for Hyperion’s Million for a Million initiative which aims to raise US $1mn over the course of the year for global and local charities.

On arrival in Barbados, Simpson said: “Jamie and I never hesitated in our determination and self-belief that together we would break this challenging record.”

Dominic Collins, chairman of Hyperion added: “I am delighted that Alex and Jamie have landed safely and succeeded in spite of difficult weather conditions in breaking the record. The physical and mental strength demonstrated by Alex and Jamie during this challenge has been truly inspirational and we should be justly proud of them for their outstanding achievement.”