Independent insurance broking giant Lockton is seeking to expand through an “aggressive growth” strategy in the reinsurance broking market, launching Lockton Global Re and announcing three senior hires from Guy Carpenter.
Lockton said its new global reinsurance business, Lockton Global Re, will be led by senior leaders it has managed to encourage away from reinsurance broking competitor Guy Carpenter.
The hires include Tim Gardner, currently the CEO of North America Operations for Guy Carpenter, Claude Yoder, currently a managing director and the global chief innovation and product development officer at Guy Carpenter, and Nick Durant, currently a managing director at Guy Carpenter and formerly president of Marsh Captive Solutions.
These are very high-profile broking hires, but it is often the case that when one company is being joined with another, such as Guy Carpenter with JLT Re, that some senior figures look for new opportunities at that time.
Lockton said the launch of Lockton Global Re and these hires are a “major build out of Lockton’s reinsurance capabilities” and also incorporate Lockton’s Specialty broking team that is based in London.
The company said that it sees reinsurance as a “critical pillar” of an “aggressive growth plan” that it is pursuing.
“This premier reinsurance leadership team will build a best-in-class global reinsurance practice that fills a significant need in the industry, by attracting the best global talent and developing the best-in-class data analytics and technology platforms,” the company explained.
“By adding this outstanding, experienced and innovative leadership team, Lockton is going all in on reinsurance,” explained Ron Lockton, President and CEO of Lockton, Inc. “We are filling a void in the marketplace, building our platform the right way by focusing on value creation for our clients. With encouragement from our key trading partners who hunger for choice and innovation, we make this commitment to the reinsurance space.”
Gardner has 20 years experience in reinsurance and insurance businesses, all gained at Marsh & McLennan. As well as his most recent role as CEO of North American Operations for Guy Carpenter, Gardner was head of sales for the International Division at Marsh. Before that, he was global leader of the Marsh risk management segment, prior to which he served as chief operating officer for Marsh’s US and Canada Divisions. Other positions he’s held at Guy Carpenter include Global Sales Leader and Global Property Specialty leader.
Yoder has over 25 years of experience in primary insurance, reinsurance, underwriting, risk management, product development and research and development. Most recently managing director and global chief innovation and product development officer for Guy Carpenter, he previously served as head of Marsh Global Analytics. Before joining Marsh in 2011, Yoder spent nearly 20 years in actuarial, underwriting and several roles for insurance carriers.
Durant is a managing director at Guy Carpenter, but was previously leader of Marsh’s captive solutions business. He has 20 years of reinsurance analytics experience and has also recently served as Marsh’s Global Analytics sales leader.
“With this team we aim to build a best of breed reinsurance brokerage business, creating for our reinsurance clients the unique customer experience that we’ve always created for our existing clients,” commented David Lockton, Chairman of Lockton, Inc.
Lockton said the new team will work along with its existing reinsurance capability, Lockton Re US, LLC and Lockton Re UK, LLP.
The company said that it aims for this reinsurance team to become part of something much bigger, with dedicated investment, new tools and technology all supplied to drive market share and growth.
Lockton is clearly aiming to attract senior brokers that may elect to leave companies going through M&A, or perhaps rumoured to be looking at M&A as was seen with Aon and Willis Re this week, saying that it offers hires a “true platform to build a career in an environment of empowerment.”
“As a major global retail broker, we always saw the opportunity in building complimentary talent in reinsurance to support our carrier partners,” Neil Nimmo, CEO, Lockton International Holdings Limited said. “Our specialty London team has been a huge success, but we wanted to find the opportunity to go global. Lockton has always focused on building business around talented people, and these three key hires give the market clear direction on the quality of the operation we want to build and who we want to build it with.”
Lockton also recently launched a unit focused on the capital markets, Lockton Capital Markets which will no doubt work closely with the new Lockton Global Re team, and also named Jerry Ridge as the new Head of Reinsurance of its Lockton Re reinsurance broking division.
As Lockton expands further into reinsurance broking and its Capital Markets team expands its activities, it’s safe to assume that collateralized markets will become key trading partners going forwards.
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