MGU Carbon lures 14-year Canopius underwriting vet to drive expansion plans

Specialist independent  MGU Carbon Underwriting has bolstered its financial lines underwriting capabilities with senior hires from Canopius Group and CNA.

Alex Marshall (pictured) is the latest to join the business as an underwriter focused on building out Carbon’s US property portfolio. He was previously an underwriter at Canopius Group focused on North American delegated authority business for almost 14 years.

His appointment follows that of Howard Gras, who has been named new head of financial lines to spearhead the MGU’s expansion plans in this line of business,  as earlier reported by Intelligent Insurer.

Gras is an experienced professional indemnity (PI) and financial lines specialist, previously PI class manager with CNA Hardy and prior to that, he held the role of commercial PI manager with Nexus Underwriting. Earlier in his career, Howard was a director with Howden Insurance Brokers and he started his career as a broker with J H Minet Insurance Brokers / Aon.

Carbon said these appointments are part of its drive to transform the international coverholder market.

Nick Tye, CEO of Carbon, said: “The arrival of Howard and Alex adds to our exciting start to the year and I am delighted to welcome them to the Carbon family. As a people business, we always look to attract highly experienced talent and these appointments add further to our fast-growing underwriting bench strength.

“We were delighted to become the first Lloyd’s syndicate-in-a-box to transition to full syndicate status from 1 January and as we look to extend the breadth of our product offering and deliver on our plan to achieve top-quartile results for Syndicate 4747, our focus is to ensure that we have the right mix of skills and expertise across our business – as well as the cutting edge digital capabilities that our Graphene platform brings – to deliver differentiation, relevance and excellence to our clients and business partners.”

Gras commented: “Carbon feels like the natural home for ambitious underwriting and I am really pleased to be joining a business that has built such an outstanding reputation, great people and a culture that is unique within the Lloyd’s market – all of which leads to a very exciting future.

“There are lots of opportunities to refine and grow financial lines underwriting through Coverholder channels and the strongest Coverholder relationships develop from a mutual respect and transparent partnership. I strongly believe that pairing expert underwriting with leading edge data insights is the way to achieve profitable and sustainable growth, and this approach further cements the relationship between capacity provider and Coverholder. I am looking forward to expanding our financial lines offering to help drive the innovative solutions that our clients have come to know and expect.”

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