Rokstone is putting a new face on its US financial lines ambitions. The specialty managing general agent has hired James Hebert away from AIG to head up US financial lines, tasking him with building out a new errors and omissions (E&O) offering aimed at the construction sector, according to online reports.
Hebert joins from AIG, where his public profile lists a focus on financial lines, risk analysis and negotiation, and where he has been based in New York. The move follows a familiar playbook for Rokstone: rather than growing organically, the MGA has spent the past two years hoovering up underwriting talent from the big commercial carriers — AIG, AXA XL, Everest and Starr among them — and handing them new books to build from scratch.
The hire slots into a part of the market Rokstone already knows well. Its US construction arm, Rokstone Construction Risk Underwriters (Rokstone CRU), has built a sizeable book insuring wood-frame developers, and last year launched a $5 million primary general liability wrap to sit alongside more than $100 million of builder's risk capacity. A dedicated E&O product would round out that offering, giving brokers a single MGA relationship for builder's risk, general liability and now professional liability exposures tied to construction projects.
It also plugs a gap in Rokstone's broader financial lines strategy. The group already runs a Lloyd's-backed directors' and officers' (D&O) and professional indemnity facility for financial institutions, and doubled its D&O line size to £10 millionlast year as demand grew. A construction-focused E&O line gives the financial lines team a second, US-anchored growth engine alongside that London-led book.
Builder's risk and E&S casualty pricing has been a hot corner of the US market, with excess and surplus lines premium climbing past $95 billion in 2024 — an 11% year-on-year rise, according to figures Rokstone itself has cited when explaining why it launched a separate E&S casualty MGA, Rokstone Commercial Risks, last year. Construction defect claims, social inflation and a wave of multifamily and mixed-use development have all pushed brokers to look for capacity outside the standard market, which is exactly the space Hebert has been brought in to target.
Rokstone, part of the Lloyd's-connected Aventum Group, now underwrites more than $1.1 billion in gross written premium globally across property, marine, aviation, construction, agriculture and financial lines, with nine offices across the US alone. Recent additions to the broader underwriting team — including new inland marine hires in Boston and San Francisco, reported in a recent Insurance Business "moves" round-up — suggest the Hebert appointment is part of a broader US hiring push rather than a one-off.
At the time of writing Rokstone had not published its own release confirming Hebert's exact title, the target launch date for the E&O facility, its line size, or which carrier(s) will provide capacity. Brokers interested in the product should expect a formal announcement from Rokstone or Rokstone CRU in the coming weeks, and should verify specifics directly with the MGA before advising clients.
