Beazley appoints McCarthy interim E&S head following Morrello’s exit

Beazley has appointed Tom McCarthy as its interim head of E&S with the company considering the structure of its team in the wake of Joe Morrello’s departure to Arch Insurance, The Insurer has learned.

As this publication reported on Tuesday, Morrello left Beazley to join Arch Insurance earlier this month as senior vice president, E&S property.

Morrello had spent over five years at Beazley and most recently served as the company’s head of E&S property and high value homeowners (HVH).

Beazley told The Insurer that McCarthy has been appointed interim head of its E&S business, while Katie Lamothe leads its US high value homeowners portfolio.

“We are reviewing the structure of our property teams in the US – once this review has been finalised, we will announce our plans,” a spokesperson for Beazley told The Insurer.

McCarthy is a 16-year veteran at Beazley, and serves the business as focus group leader for E&S property in its North Central region, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Before joining Beazley in 2006, McCarthy spent 20 years at Liberty Mutual, latterly as senior special risk underwriter for its Midwest broker operations.

Lamothe has been at Beazley for almost a decade, and currently serves the company as underwriting manager and focus group lead for its HVH offering.

Beazley’s E&S property business targets middle market commercial properties up to $500mn in value. Those properties include hotels and motels, office buildings, light manufacturing, shopping centers, restaurants, nursing and senior living facilities, and vacant properties, among others.

The insurer offers capacity of up to $50mn per risk, with $25mn being its typical writing. It will provide up to $10mn of critical catastrophe cover, for example for California earthquake or Florida windstorm, and up to $15mn for other natural cat exposures.

It writes business on a full limits, first loss, quota share and excess basis.

The properties it covers can have a total insurable value of $500mn, or $750mn in California. Beazley will also consider bigger risks through its Lloyd’s large commercial property business cover.

Beazley writes US-based HVH cover in both cat and non-cat exposed regions on an E&S basis. Its appetite includes hurricane-exposed homes as well as vacant and seasonal rentals.

It works exclusively with wholesale brokers and underwrites via Beazley’s Lloyd’s Syndicates 623 and 2623.

Beazley can offer capacity of up to $10mn total insurable value per risk for non-cat exposed properties, and up to $5.5mn for those that are cat exposed.

The company offers capacity of up to $10mn total insurable value per risk for cat-exposed properties in Florida that were built in 2002 or more recently, and excess flood limits that max out at $5mn for any combination of building and contents.

It offers up to $5.5mn of wind exposure, and will write non-California earthquake risks, as well as excess flood.