Carbon Underwriting Limited, a specialist, independent managing general underwriter (MGU), has appointed Howard Gras as Head of Financial Lines to lead Carbon’s expansion plans in this line of business.
Highly experienced in professional indemnity (PI) and financial lines, Gras brings a deep level of expertise towards his new role. Previously he held the role of PI Class Manager with CNA Hardy and prior to that, he served in the role of Commercial PI manager with Nexus Underwriting.
Prior to that, he was a Director with Howden Insurance Brokers Limited.
Additionally, Gras started his career in the industry as a broker with J H Minet Insurance Brokers / Aon.
Moreover, Carbon also announced that Alex Marshall has also joined the business as an Underwriter, focused on building out the company’s US property portfolio.
Previously Marshall served as an underwriter at Canopius Group, where he focused on North American delegated authority business for almost 14 years.
“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,” said Nick Tye, CEO at Carbon.
“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.”
“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,” added Gras.
“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.”
