Western World adds contract binding head Hall from Colony

Lexington Insurance Company’s Western World unit has hired Ray Hall from Colony Specialty as national director as it continues to add to its roster of senior E&S executives, The Insurer can reveal.

According to sources, Hall officially started in the position today and reports into Tim Whisler, who was officially named head of contract bind platform Western World last month.

Hall, who was most recently vice president and head of contract P&C at Argo’s Colony Specialty, will oversee Western World’s regional directors, agency relationships and business development.

The executive was at Colony Specialty for four-and-a-half years based in Scottsdale Arizona.

He joined the Argo E&S subsidiary in 2016 from XL Catlin, where he was most recently director of business development. He has also held executive positions at Nautilus Insurance Group and Burlington Insurance Group.

At Colony Specialty he headed up a contract P&C binding authority unit that targeted general liability and property with coverage also available for commercial inland marine, cyber, and farm and ranch liability and property.

Targeted classes included accommodations, arts and entertainment, communication, construction/contractors, farm and ranch, habitational, manufacturing, mercantile, rental operations, service risks and transportation warehousing.

He joins a Western World unit that was realigned to become part of AIG’s E&S platform Lexington in April last year.

Western World was bought by AIG as part of its acquisition of Validus in 2018 in a $5.5bn deal.

Whisler officially took over at the helm of the unit after Troy Santora left the carrier in April this year for a senior vice president role at AmWINS Access, the small business binding platform of the wholesale giant.

AIG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this article.