Pen Underwriting appoints new chief underwriting officer

London-based managing general agent (MGA) Pen Underwriting has appointed Tom Downey as chief underwriting officer.

In his new role, Downey will assume the responsibility for underwriting, capacity management, pricing, analytics, risk & governance, claims and marketing across all of Pen’s trading divisions.

Downey has been part of Pen Underwriting’s executive team and managing director of specialty since 2014, when he joined the company from RSA where he was responsible for shaping the strategy of and managing its UK MGAs and delegated schemes.

Jonathan Turner, CEO of Pen Underwriting, said: "Over the past three years, Tom has done a phenomenal job of shaping, leading and growing Pen’s largest and most diverse division. His unwavering focus on driving profitable growth, thinking strategically, achieving insurer loss ratios, and so strengthening our carrier relationships whilst embedding good governance, make him the ideal Chief Underwriting Officer as Pen embarks on its next phase of development.

Downey added: "This is a really exciting time to be taking on a new role at Pen. Now that we’ve consolidated all our underwriting businesses and built a genuine virtual insurer able to offer technical pricing, analytics, governance and claims handling capabilities in addition to all the underwriting skills of a standard MGA, we can deliver so much more for our capacity partners, coverholders, brokers and clients."

Following Downey's promotion, two other members of the company's leadership team have been appointed to assume executive-level responsibility for distinct areas of the specialty division.

Jennifer Martin, managing director of financial lines, will join the Pen Executive with financial lines becoming its own trading division and incorporating Pen’s professional indemnity accounts, directors’ & officers’, personal accident & travel, recruitment agency business and growing cyber liability portfolio.

Steve Thornett, development director, will become managing director of specialty lines incorporating motor fleet, construction, Pen’s schemes business, the high hazard portfolio and the global specialties account while continuing with some of his central innovation and development activities.

Turner commented: "I know that Jen and Steve will build on the great work undertaken by Tom in positioning Pen as the go-to specialty underwriting business."

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