REFILE-Exclusive: Markel eliminates global EUO roles leaving senior staff in limbo

By James Thaler

April 28 - (The Insurer) – Markel has eliminated its global executive underwriting officer positions, along with a team of support staff, affecting up to a dozen positions overall, with the Virginia-based insurer looking to redeploy a number of the affected staff elsewhere in the company.

It could not immediately be confirmed which executives whose roles have been affected are expected to remain with the company. A spokesperson for Markel declined to comment on the insurer’s latest senior staff shake-up.

Among the well-known market figures to have previously been in the roles that have now been eliminated are professional liability global executive Jim Proferes, property executive Jamie Mullarkey, casualty executive Mia Finsness and cyber executive Kelly Castriotta.

Sources familiar with the matter said that Proferes had previously announced his retirement before the global executive underwriting officer roles were eliminated, however, and that Mullarkey is taking up another role elsewhere within the organization.

It could not immediately be confirmed who or how many of the other staff affected by the elimination of the executive underwriting officer roles will remain with the company in new positions.

A source familiar with the matter said that the latest organizational changes have been made to simplify the business by giving local teams a greater degree of empowerment and accountability to serve the needs of customers.

The elimination of the executive underwriting officer roles comes after Markel last week announced the retirement of longtime executive Robin Russo, who had been with the company for over 30 years.

All of the global executive underwriting officers whose posts have been eliminated reported to Russo.

Markel also announced last week it was restructuring Markel Specialty into two divisions: U.S. wholesale and Specialty and Programs and Solutions.

As part of that restructure Markel named Alex Martin president of Programs and Solutions and Wendy Houser president of Wholesale and Specialty.

Martin, who has been with the company for nearly two decades, spent the last year and a half as the president of Markel Specialty, a role in which he succeeded Bryan Sanders, who has remained with the company as chair of the Wholesale and Specialty division.

Houser has been with Markel since 2008 and spent the last two years as head of wholesale.

Markel’s reshuffling of its insurance business management ranks also comes after the company last month parted ways with insurance president Jeremy Noble, who spent 22 years with the firm mostly in finance roles, including a four-plus year stint as Markel’s chief financial officer.

Noble was replaced by Simon Wilson, who has been with the company for 15 years and had spent the last three and a half years as president of Markel International.

Among the challenges the company has weathered in the past two years include a downturn in underwriting profitability driven by weaker results in casualty and professional liability.

The company has previously messaged that those classes of business are on a trajectory of improvement following a series of remedial underwriting actions.

In early February of this year, Markel announced realignment of its professional liability business that involved moving the underwriting of its U.S. public D&O and financial institutions portfolio to Bermuda, as well as a number of redundancies.

In addition, last year the insurer took multiple charges connected to an intellectual property product that it has since wound down.