Market moves: Insurers up for the challenge

Well it has to be hats off to the insurer side of the insurance divide. The number of moves between providers puts brokers in the shade across December and January. Clearly the risk carriers have more of a “new year, new challenge” mentality. RSA, Zurich and Aviva all had developments in personal lines, Ecclesiastical unveiled new broker-facing positions and UK General had several new recruits. Elsewhere it was all about doubles as Covéa created a brace of new roles, LV revealed double additions across both underwriting and operations and Sterling unveiled two regional appointments. Also getting in on the regional act were, among others, Ace, Chubb and HCCI with the final of these going as far as opening a new office in Leeds. Brokers were more muted in their announcements of new staff, at least compared to their insurer cousins. Arthur J Gallagher proved it could acquire people as well as firms with two developments in the regions while Lorica had an increase in headcount. However, the North of England monopolised most of the changes with developments at W Denis, Romero, Bridge and Bryan James. And we finish with a first, suitably enough for two reasons, as Lord Hunt stepped up to become chairman at Biba.

The big changes came in personal lines as both RSA and Zurich unveiled developments. For RSA it involved quite a rejig of its offering (see box) while at Zurich Tim Holliday took over as managing director of its UK personal lines business. Previously UKGI chief underwriting officer, Holliday replaced John Dyke whose departure for the United States had already been announced. Aviva also dipped its toe into the personal lines news with the appointment of Ian Foy to the newly created role of