Aon Benfield hires Paire from Guy Carpenter, to lead new Capital Advisory

Eric Paire has joined reinsurance broker Aon Benfield to lead the firms newly created Capital Advisory unit, which will provide clients with holistic capital solutions, including structured and alternative risk products. Paire was most recently at competitor Guy Carpenter.

The new Capital Advisory unit at Aon Benfield will focus on assisting the brokers clients with better managing capital through risk transfer solutions, offering them a holistic capital service, to include structured reinsurance and alternative risk solutions, capital provision, business intelligence, financial modelling, and rating agency expertise, alongside and with the resources of Aon Inpoint, the ILS and capital markets unit Aon Securities and Aon’s Investment Solutions for Insurers.

Eric Paire will report into Nick Frankland, UK CEO of Aon Benfield in the new role. He was most recently Head of Strategic Advisory & EMEA Global Partners since 2007 at Guy Carpenter, prior to which he held a number of other roles at the broker and also held positions at reinsurance companies including AXA Re and SCOR.

Frankland explained the rationale for setting up the new unit, “Our Capital Advisory unit has been created specifically to advise clients effectively on both their asset and liability strategies, in order to help optimise the use of capital across their operations.”

As brokers increasingly look to risk transfer and risk capital alongside the other forms of capital lever available to their clients, having a holistic approach to the advisory around use of capital is becoming common place. The capital markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) increasingly feature here, as they are seen less as alternative and more as complementary capital tools.

Additionally, Aon Benfield also announced the hiring of Emma Karhan today, also from Guy Carpenter, who will take the role of Head of Terrorism Specialty and Reinsurer Relationships in London.

Karhan will report to Bob Bisset, CEO of Aon Benfield’s Global ReSpecialty division, and will be tasked with driving growth in the brokers terror reinsurance client coverage, specifically in the pool and public entity space. She will also be tasked with enhancing Aon Benfield’s relationships with reinsurers across the region as part of Aon Benfield Broking Strategies, led globally by Jeremy Goodman.

Karhan was most recently a Managing Director within Guy Carpenter’s EMEA Practice, leading international terrorism placements and was a member of its Nordics business management team. She had previously held other positions at Guy Carpenter within its EMEA Property Solutions Group and has a 17 year reinsurance career.

Frankland said, “We are evolving our terror offering through enhanced modelling tools and coverage development, which will benefit hugely from Emma’s proven expertise and reinsurer relationships in the class.”

Adding, “We are excited to have Eric and Emma join our firm and help lead the development of new capabilities within our client offering. Both hires will significantly add to our client experience.