The UK P&I Club has appointed Jeong-Sook Kim (pictured) as senior underwriting director, giving her initial responsibility for growing the mutual's presence in the Korean shipping market from its London headquarters.
Kim joined the club on August 4 and will report into chief underwriting officer William Beveridge, working alongside the wider Asia-Pacific leadership team. Her remit covers shaping underwriting strategy for Korean members while building the club's reputation and membership base in the country.
What sets Kim apart from a typical underwriting hire is the legal background sitting alongside more than three decades in broking and underwriting, according to the club. A lawyer and an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, she has worked across Korea, Japan and Vietnam covering both protection and indemnity and freight, demurrage and defence cover.
Her most recent role was as a senior associate on the specialist shipping team at Campbell Johnston Clark, a law firm with a heavy footprint in maritime disputes. Before that she held senior positions within the P&I sector itself, giving her a dual vantage point on claims risk and coverage disputes that pure underwriters rarely bring to the table.
South Korea has been clawing back shipbuilding market share after a difficult 2024, and that matters directly for where new tonnage gets ordered, flagged and insured. Clarksons Research data cited by PortNews showed South Korean yards took 19% of global newbuilding orders by compensated gross tonnage in the first half of 2026, against China's 72%, as part of a broader rebound that saw Korean builders lift their full-year 2025 share to around 22% from 17% the year before.
A dedicated senior underwriter based in London but focused specifically on Korean relationships gives brokers a clearer point of contact when placing risk for that expanding fleet, rather than routing queries through a generalist Asia-Pacific desk. It also reflects a broader pattern among International Group of P&I Clubs members of investing in country-specific underwriting expertise rather than relying solely on regional hubs in Hong Kong or Singapore.
The hire follows a period of active expansion for the UK P&I Club. The club recently launched a fixed premium product aimed at smaller vessel operators and joined SEA-LNG as it builds out expertise in low-emission shipping fuels, moves that together point to a club trying to widen its book beyond traditional mutual membership.
Beveridge framed the appointment as consistent with that strategy, saying Kim's experience across Korean and international shipping markets, along with the relationships she has built over her career, will support the club's efforts to strengthen its presence in the region.
Kim's appointment lands at a genuinely difficult moment for the sector.
A September 2025 Lockton analysis found the International Group's 2024/25 policy year produced net claims of US$3.1 billion, up 25% year on year and 16% above the five-year average, driving a collective underwriting loss of US$312 million across the Group's member clubs. Lockton pointed to fires and electric vehicle cargo as emerging drivers of major losses alongside more familiar pressures.
Against that backdrop, hiring underwriters who combine legal grounding with long-standing market relationships looks less like a one-off appointment and more like a deliberate bet that specialist, relationship-led underwriting will be what separates clubs competing for a growing pool of Korean-built tonnage.
For brokers with Korean clients, it is worth watching whether other International Group members respond with similar country-specific hires over the coming year.
