Underwriting director controlled $250m of premium income at Wellington
Catlin has suffered its most significant loss since taking over Wellington with the resignation of underwriting director, Matthew Yeldham.
Yeldham, who was Wellington's former deputy chief underwriting officer, walked out on Catlin last week to take on a new role as head of international insurance at rival insurer Aspen.
He was regarded by many as the natural successor to chief underwriting officer Tim Burrows before Wellington was acquired in October 2006.
According to sources, Yeldham's departure will be a big loss for Catlin as he was understood to have controlled around $250m of premium income as head of casualty and marine at Wellington Syndicate 2020.
But a spokesman for Catlin, said: "We fully expected to lose employees at this time of the year and that was assumed in our business plan.
"One of the strengths of Catlin following the Welling-ton acquisition is that we have a very strong team of underwriters, including the underwriting management. Therefore we don't believe his resignation will impact on Catlin in the future."
Yeldham's move to Aspen, where he will be responsible for all specialty and insurance products sold outside the US, follows a number of other ex-Wellington resignations in recent days.
In total, six people left the newly combined company last week including James Butchart, a marine treaty underwriter, Mark Abraham, a non-marine property underwriter, Murray Patterson, also a non-marine property underwriter, together with one compliance officer and an employee from the insurer's training division.
Their departures add to an ever increasing list of former Wellington staff (see box), who have chosen not to remain at what has become Lloyd's largest syndicate.
Following the £700m acquisition last year the total number of departures has risen to more than 100 employees. This includes 18 underwriters.
