Optio expands W&I portfolio with senior hire and increased line size

London-based specialty MGA  Optio Group has expanded its warranty & indemnity (W&I) portfolio with a senior hire and almost doubled its line size to help meet rising demand in the M&A market.

Optio has hired Paul Tominey as senior underwriter and increased its W&I line size for single risks from £12 million to £20.5 million.

The move follows increasing demand for transactional liability insurance for SMEs, as M&A activity remains “frenetic”, the company said.

Tominey joins Optio with 10 years of experience across a range of sectors in the UK, US, Middle East and Nordic regions. Previously, he served as senior associate at global law firm DLA Piper, where he advised primarily on buy-side, PE-backed transactions.

Tominey will report to Alex Smith (pictured), head of Optio’s SME transactional liability business, who said: “Despite the Covid-related M&A slump, the SME market was resilient, retaining a high level of seller and investor confidence through 2020 and 2021.

“As a result, our offering in the SME space has gone from strength to strength and, in addition to Paul’s appointment and our increase in line size, further hires are likely to help meet demand. Paul’s broad and specialist M&A experience will be enormously beneficial to us and our clients and I am delighted to welcome him to Optio.”

Matthew Fosh, executive chairman of Optio Group, added: “Under Alex’s leadership, our SME W&I proposition continues to expand considerably as an increasingly important area of specialism for Optio. The measures announced today will further strengthen Optio’s position, in an area of the M&A market that continues to grow.”

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