Howden Employee Benefits and Markel International each announced senior appointments spanning employee benefits operations at scale and specialist financial institutions underwriting across professional liability, D&O, crime and cyber.
Howden Employee Benefits (HEB) has appointed Peter Murphy (pictured, left) as chief operating officer, effective September 1. His remit spans the firm's enlarged UK business of 2,600 colleagues, brought together following the integration of Barnett Waddingham, the employee benefits consultancy arm of Evelyn Partners, and Hymans Robertson's insurance and financial services consulting team.
Murphy has served as COO of Howden's employee benefits division for six years. He reports to Glenn Thomas, CEO and global practice leader for health and employee benefits.
Before joining Howden, Murphy spent 15 years at WTW in client-facing, operational, and transformation leadership roles. His appointment follows a run of senior hires into the Howden Employee Benefits leadership team over the past year. HEB named Carla Hammond as CFO from Jones Lang LaSalle, Rob Byett as chief risk officer from Hargreaves Lansdown, and Andy Samuel as global chief technology officer from Ardonagh Advisory.
Thomas said the employee benefits division is one of the fastest-growing parts of Howden and that Murphy has been central to that growth. "Asking him to take on the combined business reflects both the scale of what we have created and our confidence in him to run it," he said.
Murphy said his focus is on the operational, technology and data foundations. "In practice that means stronger connectivity across our systems and processes, better use of the data we hold and simpler ways of working across teams," he said. "Get that right and clients feel it in the quality and consistency of what we deliver, and colleagues feel it every day."
Globally, Howden's employee benefits division spans approximately 4,000 experts across 40 countries, with combined revenues exceeding £500 million. Howden Group has set a target to reach £10 billion in revenue by 2030, with employee benefits named as a material part of delivering that figure.
Employers and corporate clients with benefits programmes administered through any of the integrated businesses should expect operational consolidation to gather pace under Murphy's leadership. The declared priority of building a single technology and data platform across the combined business means service touchpoints, reporting formats and adviser contacts may change as integration work progresses.
Markel International has appointed Nick Rugg (pictured, right) as head of financial institutions and fintech, professional and financial risks and cyber, within its London-based specialty insurance operation, with immediate effect.
Rugg reports to Martin McCarron, director of financial institutions and management liability, international. He leads the team providing professional indemnity, D&O, crime and cyber coverage across four lines: investment managers, fintech, traditional financial institutions, and offshore financial institutions.
He joined Markel in 2014 as a financial institutions underwriter and has since held senior underwriting positions, most recently as head of fintech and investment management insurance. He has more than 20 years of underwriting experience and previously worked as a financial institutions underwriter at Arch Europe.
The appointment follows Bhavik Desai's move to managing director of professional and financial risks and cyber in London and represents a consolidation of the wider financial institutions portfolio under Rugg's leadership.
Rugg said fintech has moved from an emerging segment to an established part of the financial services market and that the range of business models has expanded alongside it. "I look forward to working with our underwriting team, brokers and clients to develop the wider financial institutions portfolio," he said.
Desai said Rugg's product expertise, broker relationships, and portfolio development experience give him a strong foundation. "In this expanded role, Nick will bring that experience across the wider financial institutions portfolio, with a focus on developing products that respond to the way financial services risks are continuing to converge," he said.
Brokers placing fintech, investment management or traditional financial institutions risks with Markel's London specialty operation should note that Rugg's mandate now covers all four product lines, not only the fintech and investment management book he previously led. His experience developing blended cyber and financial institutions coverage spans professional liability, D&O and cyber.
