Market Moves: February 2023

Brokers

Darwin Clayton has appointed Mark Harris to its board of directors. Harris will be responsible for product governance and oversight, managing insurer relationships, leading the scheme teams and technical referral point within the business, and select large client accounts.

Alistair Matthews will head up Aston Lark’s new Thames Valley office, having joined as a regional director with responsibility for a region covering offices in Farnborough and Alton, Hampshire. Matthews brings with him more than 20 years of experience in the insurance sector, most recently as area managing director for Towergate Insurance Brokers.

Also joining Aston Lark is Lee Parr, as associate director in its commercial division leading its Derby office. Parr has more than 20 years’ experience in the industry, and was most recently branch director for PIB Insurance Brokers. Prior to this, he was operations director for Cowens Group.

Miller has recruited Steve Moore as an account executive in its sports and entertainment team. Moore will report to David Griffiths and be based in London. Moore brings more than 30 years of industry experience, spending the majority of his career at SBJ, now Marsh Commercial. He joins from Towergate, where he spent the past five years in branch and area management.

Consilium has named Paul Richards to lead the business as co-CEO alongside James Baird who was appointed CEO in November 2022. The two have been colleagues for 22 years. Richards was formerly executive director and a member of Ed Broking’s executive committee for nearly three years. Before that, he was managing director of Ed Broking’s professional and executive risk division.

Quote Me Today has promoted its chief insurance officer Andy Seagar to become CEO, replacing founder Andrew Jackson who takes up the role of chairman. Seagar joined the business as a trainee broker in 2006, becoming a partner in 2011 and a director/co-owner in 2015.

Wayne Tonge has taken on the managing director role at PIB-owned Barbon Insurance Group. Tonge will report to Barbon CEO Andy Halstead. The move will see Tonge leave his current managing director position at the Ardonagh-owned Property Initiatives Underwriting Agency, following seven years at the managing general agent.

Insurers

Ageas UK has made two executive team appointments: Rashmi Rao as chief information officer, and Stephen Linklater as its claims director. Rao joins Ageas following a career that spans more than 25 years in technology, digital transformation, IT and business strategy across countries and regulated industries including insurance, banking, healthcare and consulting.

She has held several senior technology leadership roles in insurance including at Bupa, XL Insurance and Ace Insurance. 

Linklater joined Ageas in 2008 as head of household underwriting, and has held senior pricing and underwriting roles across the broker and direct channels. More recently, he was appointed to the UK executive team as managing director for the commercial business unit, responsible for the sale of Ageas’s commercial lines business. Before Ageas, Linklater held roles at RSA and Hastings.

Rao replaces Mark Collins, who was appointed to the business in 2018, and Linklater succeeds Robin Challand, who has been with Ageas UK since 1989. Both Collins and Challand have accepted new positions within Ageas group supporting the company’s Impact24 strategy.

Allianz Commercial has appointed former head of claims operations, Graham Stait, as regional manager for the Midlands and South West England commercial regions. In his new role, Stait will be responsible for leading the region, working with the branch trading operations and strengthening ties with the local brokers and the firm’s customers.

In his most recent position as Allianz’s head of claims operations and a member of the Allianz Claims Management Committee, Stait led the development of Allianz Claims’ operational strategy, and was responsible for overseeing and delivering the claims service proposition.

MS Amlin has made several appointments to its senior underwriting leadership team. This follows Andrew Carrier’s transition from chief underwiting Office to CEO on 1 January. Graham Baxter, who joined the business at the end of 2022 as head of reinsurance, also became interim CUO with effect 1 January reporting to Carrier.

Neil Walker, currently head of underwriting transformation, has become co-deputy CUO and head of specialty insurance. Walker assumes responsibility for marine, casualty natural resources and crisis management insurance lines.

Sam Geddes, currently head of property and allied lines, has also been named as co-deputy CUO alongside his existing responsibilities for property and motor insurance product lines. Both Walker and Geddes will report into Baxter.

Markel International, has promoted Carys Lawton-Bryce to chief operating officer, and has added her to its executive committee. The moves, which are subject to regulatory approval, have been made with immediate effect.

Reporting to Simon Wilson, president of the international division of Markel, Lawton-Bryce will be responsible for the build-out, strategy and the day-to-day management of an operations function that takes a view over the business’ wholesale and national markets divisions, as well as the shared services that support them.

Lawton-Bryce brings 17 years of experience in the insurance industry to the job, having joined Markel as wholesale operations director in August 2021.

Spring Insure has named Tristan Sargeaunt as group CEO. Sargeaunt is joining from Lloyd’s of London broker, Protean Risk, where he was managing director. He will succeed co-founder Nathan Sewell, who has steered the managing general agent since its launch in November 2020.

Others

Jonathan Evans will remain as chair of the British Insurance Brokers’ Association after the organisation extended his tenure for three more years. Evans has been chair of Biba since January 2020, with the announcement that he was being named to lead the association being made on stage at the 2019 Biba annual conference.

Evans has previously worked in both the world of law and politics, serving as a Conservative party MP and MEP for nearly 20 years. This included as Corporate Affairs Minister with responsibility for the insurance industry during the John Major government, and in chairing parliamentary groups on insurance and financial services.

The Chartered Insurance Institute has announced new chairs to two of its specialist communities, the Society of Insurance Broking and Society of Claims Professionals. Laura Hancock, director of YuTree Insurance, replaces Kevin Hancock, also of YuTree, as the chair of SIB, while Ashton West OBE, non-executive director of Weightmans LLP and director of Fidu Consultancy, succeeds Sue McCall of MS Amlin. Chair appointments are made on a biennial basis, and come following the natural completion cycles of their predecessors.

Barry Driscoll has joined GRP’s underwriting division as its chief trading officer. This is a new role for GRP and he started 1 January. Driscoll, who was previously in a senior leadership role at Zurich, will report to GRP’s underwriting CEO Clive Nathan.

Shirel Stedman has been appointed to the board of Flood Re as a non-executive director starting on 16 January. Stedman brings more than 30 years’ experience as a civil engineer, and has spent most of her career working in flood resilience, climate change and water issues across the public and private sector. 

Stedman currently works at the Ministry of Defence as global head of growth, leading the development of hydrographic data, and acts as chair of the Severn and Wye regional flood coastal committee.

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