AXA XL promotes insider to head up specialty niche insurance in Americas

AXA XL Insurance has tapped its commercial bond business leader to take charge of its specialty niche insurance business in the Americas.

Maria Duhart (pictured) has been promoted to the role of chief underwriting officer (CUO) for specialty niche.

In her new role, Duhart will assume multi-line underwriting management responsibility of AXA XL's collective specialty niche insurance lines in the Americas which includes political risk, trade credit and commercial bonds; war, terrorism and political violence; fine art & specie, leisure and entertainment and structured risk solutions. She will report to Donna Nadeau, chief underwriting officer for the Americas.

Duhart was most recently head of AXA XL's commercial bonds business. Before joining AXA XL, she served as head of commercial surety at Nationwide. She also previously held the roles of regional commercial surety manager, assistant vice president – surety and senior surety underwriting specialist at Chubb.

Nadeau said: "Since joining us in 2017, Maria has led our Commercial Bond business, impressively growing this business and building a talented underwriting team. With more than 20 years of insurance, business strategy and finance experience, Maria is well prepared for her new responsibilities, already having a strong grasp of our specialty lines businesses and the respect of our brokers, reinsurers, and colleagues."

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.