Partnerships director resigns from Arthur J Gallagher

Arthur J Gallagher partnerships managing director Alan Sanderson has resigned from the broker after 18 months, Insurance Times has learned.

Sanderson joined last April from Brightside as part of the broker’s plans to double its UK schemes and affinities business turnover to $100m [£61.3m] by 2015.

Gallagher said he had accepted a new opportunity outside the broking group.

Sanderson is the fourth senior manager to have resigned from Gallagher’s distribution and underwriting business within two months.

Gallagher Insurance Solutions managing director Des O’Connor and managing director of Direct Andrew Wallin left in July and will join Brightside and Simply Business owner AnaCap in January.

Meanwhile chief underwriting officer Sian Fisher resigned in August and will leave Gallagher next month.

Yesterday Gallagher appointed former A&A chief executive Martin Oliver to replace O’Connor, and it has previously confirmed that the chief underwriting officer role will not be directly replaced.

Executive chairman Adrian Brown said he was “absolutely not worried” about the departures.

“If they were all leaving to go to rival firms at same level I’d be worried. If you look at where they’re going and what they’re doing, they’re different decisions for different reasons,” he told Insurance Times.

“Of course the timing isn’t brilliant. But this is something we’ll have to cope with. Gallagher’s come from nothing to being massive. And hey guess what? Our people are attractive to people.”

Brown said Sanderson’s new role was “a great job for him”.

“When Alan came to me I could absolutely see why he’d want to take that job. And he was very kind and said it was nothing to do with me. That’s always very nice to know.”

Brown said he will work with incoming Gallagher Insurance Solutions managing director Martin Oliver to replace Sanderson.

“If this was Gallagher of four years ago, they’d have had to start by looking externally. The great thing is I’m looking around and seeing some really good people internally who could fill that role,” he said.