Company plans to have a 50-strong team as it follows AXA and Aviva into corporate risks
Aspen will aim to open offices in Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol and probably Leeds or Manchester as it becomes the latest insurer to follow AXA and Aviva into corporate risks.
The insurer, which will enter the market through a managing general agency, already has 10 people on board, 10 more are being interviewed, and it plans to have a 50-strong team by the end of next year, Insurance Times understands. Aspen is banking on Kevin Pallett and Geoff Crisp – who founded Fusion then sold it to Towergate – to head the MGA and selected panel of brokers by early 2011.
In a further foray into the £9bn premium corporate risks market, Liberty International Underwriters Europe (LIU Europe) said it is “making a push for the regions’ after poaching three staff”.
LIU Europe swooped on QBE for Matt Cullen, a property manager for the Birmingham office. Warren Ash becomes risk engineer for Manchester while Daniel Fielding, formerly at CNA, joins as a property manager for Manchester.
They will work with LIU’s London property team, which was established last year, to provide products in property damage, business interruption and risk management to clients with turnovers of £20m-£500m.
Liberty is also likely to strengthen its corporate risks team further with four appointments from insurer Mitsui Sumitomo.
Last week, Insurance Times reported that Aviva’s head of corporate risk solutions Dipak Warren, who left Mitsui in September, raided her former workplace to recruit property underwriting manager John Tiernan and two of his colleagues.
AXA is relying on former CNA underwriting director Martin Eyres, appointed last month, to break into the mid-corporate risks.
