Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company (BHSI) has announced further expansion of its leadership team in Dubai, UAE, with the appointment of executives to fill key product line and service posts.

BHSI is a major provider of commercial property, casualty, healthcare professional liability, executive and professional lines, surety, travel, medical stop loss, and homeowners insurance. The new appointees include:

•Aisling Malone as the Head of Executive & Professional Lines. Malone was previously head of Professional Liability Cyber Mena and senior underwriter at AIG MEA Limited. Aisling is joined by senior underwriter Joe Saab.

•Emir Erdur as Head of Casualty. He was previously Casualty Leader and Regional Underwriter of Casualty for the MEA region at QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited. Erdur is joined by senior underwriting manager Mohammed Hannoun.

•Carlos Beltran as Head of Commercial Property. Carlos was previously Regional Vice President, P&C Underwriting at Chubb Latin America.

•Meenakshi Srinath as Head of Marine. Prior to BHSI, she was Head of Marine (Gulf and KSA) at AXA Insurance Gulf.

•Kapil Palathinkal as Head of Energy and Construction. Palathinkal was most recently the Energy & Engineered Risk Manager for the Arabian Hub at AIG. He is joined by senior underwriter Anuradha Sekar.

•Pruthviraj More as Senior Risk Engineer. Pruthviraj joins BHSI from Allianz Global Corporate Specialty where he was a Property Loss Control Engineer.

•John Lewis as Head of Claims. He was previously Head of Claims at Zurich Insurance DIFC Dubai.

On the key appointments, Marc Breuil, the president for Asia and Middle East at BHSI, said: "Building a strong foundation of servicing capabilities and local knowledge and expertise is critical to our long term plans in the Middle East."

"Since DIFC BHSI commenced operations in February, we have established a strong and dynamic team to bring its unmatched financial strength and capital to the Middle East," he noted.

Earlier this year BHSI announced the appointment of Alessandro Cerase as Senior Executive Officer (SEO) and Neeraj Yadvendu as deputy SEO and Head of Third Party Lines for the Middle East, both based on Dubai.

Cerase also leads First Party Lines for BHSI’s broader Asia Middle East region, which includes BHSI’s other regional hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore as well as BHSI operations in Malaysia and Macau.

“Our new teammates in Dubai embody the excellent capabilities and strong character that is so valued by BHSI and by our customers,” remarked Cerase.

“They will lead our efforts to bring BHSI’s long-term focus, multi-line underwriting and service excellence to customers throughout the Middle East. We are pleased to welcome them aboard,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service