Corporate round-up

FM Global appoints Lawson as president and Hall as COO Property insurer FM Global has appointed executive vice president Thomas Lawson as president and elected him to its board of directors. It has also named Jonathon Hall as chief operating officer. Mr Lawson will take up his new positions on 1 August. He will also succeed Shivan Subramaniam as chief executive officer on 1 Jan, 2015. Mr Hall's appointment also comes into effect on 1 August. In his new role he will oversee insurance operations and insurance staff functions.hideMr Lawson joined the mutual insurance company in 1979. As president, he will be responsible for the strategic and operational direction of the company. Mr Subramaniam will retire at the end of this year after 40 years at FM Global. He will remain chairman of FM Global's board of directors. "I have worked with Tom and Jon for nearly 16 years and have the utmost respect for the countless contributions they have made to help our policyholder-owners be more resilient," said Mr Subramaniam. "Their vast experience, leadership and deep understanding of our clients' complex needs, combined with FM Global's timeless business model, will ensure the continued success we share with our policyholders." Beazley expands open market property underwriting team Beazley has recruited John Brown and Simon Jackson to join the company's open market property team. The pair will join early next year. They will initially report to Jonathan Gray, who heads the company's open market property team, working alongside senior property underwriter Mark Bodkin. It was previously announced that Mr Gray-who established Beazley's property division in 1992-will be leaving Beazely in June 2015, at which time Mr Jackson will assume leadership of the firm's open market property team. Mark Bernacki, Head of Beazley's Property Division, said: "Lloyd's enjoys global renown for insuring the largest and most complex commercial property risks. Under Jonathan Gray's direction, open market property has been an area in which Beazley has carved a strong leadership position. Mark Bodkin, who joined us in May 2009, added expertise and experience to a team that underwrote gross premiums of US$124.5m last year. John and Simon are similarly enormously experienced and well respected underwriters with a strong record of achievement. With their arrival at the beginning of 2015, I believe we will be able to offer brokers an array of underwriting skills and service capabilities that are second to none in our market." Banco Pactual to purchase Ariel Re Financial products and services firm Banco BTG Pactual SA (BTG Pactual) has reached an agreement to buy Ariel Re from Global Atlantic Financial Group Ltd. The transaction, which includes all of the operating entities, assets and obligations of Ariel Re, is still subject to customary regulatory approvals. The purchase price for the Bermuda-based reinsurance company has not been disclosed. BTG Pactual said that Ariel Re will become the 'cornerstone' of its international reinsurance venture, building on its London-based reinsurance principal investment business. The move will 'establish a permanent presence in the reinsurance industry', it added. Ariel Re, which has offices in Bermuda and London, will continue to operate its Lloyd's of London syndicate and retain access to Lloyd's security ratings. It will still operate under the Ariel Re brand name and identity. "Ariel Re is an exceptional business with a strong track record, experienced people, market-leading technology and an innovative structure, including a Lloyd's syndicate. While current market conditions are clearly challenging, the opportunity to buy a best-in-class business with proven risk discipline was too good to miss, as it offers an exceptional opportunity to expand our presence in the P&C industry outside of our local market," said Andre Esteves, CEO of BTG Pactual. Going forward, Global Atlantic will focus on growing its life and annuity business. AIR improves US Severe Thunderstorm Model Catastrophe risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide (AIR) has updated its Severe Thunderstorm Model for the US. The 'comprehensive' upgrade features 'significant' enhancements to the model's three components-hazard, engineering and financial, said the firm. The improvements are based on a decade's worth of new data and scientific research, including damage data collected and analysed by AIR scientists and engineers following major thunderstorm outbreaks in 2008, 2011 and 2013. "The culmination of this new data, research, and 15,000 person-hours of development time is a model that provides a more comprehensive view of US severe thunderstorm risk," said Scott Stransky, Manager and Principal Scientist at AIR Worldwide. "The model update reflects a unique blend of statistical and physical modelling combined with the latest meteorological research to help overcome many of the limitations and reporting biases in the historical data. Such a model serves to provide companies with the high-resolution, detailed view of the risk needed to assess the impact of severe thunderstorm losses on their portfolios." The AIR model captures large outbreaks that produce insured losses in excess of US$25m as well as smaller events that may last only a day and produce much lower losses. In addition to the standard 10,000-year simulation, AIR will release 50,000- and 100,000-year stochastic simulations and a historical catalogue containing several key recent events. AIR has also released its Crop Hail Model for the US-the modelling industry's first fully probabilistic model that captures the effects of hail on insured crops. The new Crop Hail Model uses the 10,000-year stochastic catalogue from AIR's Severe Thunderstorm Model for the US, in which hailstorms are a modelled peril.

Corporate round-up

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