GAIF gets new President
The Insurance Federation of Egypt (IFE) has named Dr Mohamed Ghazi as the country’s representative to the Executive Council of the General Arab Insurance Federation (GAIF). Dr Ghazi, through this nomination, becomes GAIF President for the current 2014-2016 term.
Dr Ghazi takes over at the GAIF helm from Mr Alaa El-Zoheiry following IFE’s amendments to market representative nomination rules.
Dr Ghazi is the Chairman and Managing Director of Misr Life Insurance, one of the two state-owned operators in Egypt. He has extensive experience in the local and regional insurance markets, and has served as the Head of the Insurance Department of the Faculty of Commerce in Cairo University.
Mr El-Zoheiry, who is the Managing Director of Arab Misr Insurance Group (gig), resigned as GAIF President on 22 February. He was appointed to the position last September as the representative of the Egyptian market, with Egypt holding the GAIF presidency for the 2014-16 term. Mr El-Zoheiry was supposed to hold the position until the next GAIF General Conference in 2016 in Lebanon.
IFE’s Board had decided that any member nominated as Egypt’s representative on the GAIF Council should not have held the position for more than two consecutive terms. Mr El-Zoheiry held this position for at least two terms before becoming GAIF President last year.
Established in Cairo in 1964, GAIF’s Council consists of 19 members including the President. The members represent the Arab insurance markets.
ACE creates new role for Eurasia and Africa
ACE has promoted Mr Andrey Sedov to the newly created position of Head of Property Risk Engineering for Eurasia and Africa, as it continues to build its risk management capability for clients across its newest regional business and around the world. The appointment is effective 1 April.
Currently Property Risk Engineer for Russia and Turkey, Mr Sedov will be responsible in his new role for managing ACE’s team of property risk engineers based in the region, and providing support and guidance to ACE Arabia, the company’s joint venture in Saudi Arabia. Under his leadership, the team will provide coordinated, dedicated and responsive support to property underwriters across the region. He will work closely with the company’s global risk engineering network to ensure the sharing of best practice and insights across the Group, and the delivery of added-value risk management services to brokers and clients locally.
Mr Sedov will continue to be based in Moscow and he will report to Mr Vadim Bulanov, Underwriting Manager for Property in Russia, and to Mr Rai Navakas, Global Head of Property Risk Engineering.
Mr Sedov, who has more than eight years of experience in the insurance industry, joined ACE in Moscow in 2012, where he has been responsible for property risk engineering for the region, including performing risk assessments on behalf of a large variety of clients with large production facilities, and producing survey reports for underwriters, brokers and cedants.
Previously, Mr Sedov worked for six years at Zurich Insurance Group, latterly as Risk Engineering Manager for Russia. He also spent eight years as a head of production in the biotechnology sector and as a product engineer in the food and chemical sectors.
TT Club appoints Regional Claims Director EMEA
International transport, freight and logistics insurance provider TT Club has appointed Mr Justin Reynolds as Regional Claims Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Based in London, he will be responsible for handling members’ claims across the EMEA region.
Mr Reynolds, a qualified solicitor, has over 20 years’ dispute resolution experience, having handled a diverse range of high-profile claims in the cargo, transport, shipping and logistics arena.
Prior to joining the TT Club, Mr Reynolds was a Partner at the international law firm Holman Fenwick Willan where he negotiated, mediated, arbitrated and litigated claims in the UK and around the world.
Bahrain Insurance Association elects new board
The Bahrain Insurance Association (BIA) has elected Mr Yahya Nooruddin, CEO of t’azur Company as Chairman of its board of directors for the 2015-16 term, taking over from Mr Younis Al Sayed, CEO of Takaful International. Mr Yassir Albaharna, CEO of Arig, has been named Vice Chairman.
Mr Al Sayed has been elected as a member of the board. The other board members who have been elected are Messrs Sameer Al Wazzan (CEO of Bahrain National Holding), Nader Al Mandeel (CEO of Medgulf Takaful), Ebrahim Al Rayes (CEO of Bahrain Kuwait Insurance) and Jamil Bahou (Managing Director of Crescent Global).
Bahrain: Legal & General Gulf names new CEO
Mr Peter Drummond has been appointed as CEO and Board Member of Legal & General Gulf and Legal & General Gulf Takaful.
Mr Drummond has extensive experience in the financial services industry, where he started in the UK direct sales market. He developed his management career by recruiting sales teams and opened two direct sales start-ups, managing a sales force of 350 people in London and the south east of the UK.
In 2003, Mr Drummond moved to Oman as General Manager of Muscat Life, where he doubled the size of the company and introduced medical insurance to the market. Subsequently, he was appointed as Global Partnerships Director with Friends Provident International. He later moved to Bahrain from Dubai, where he was Head of Life at Oman Insurance Company, responsible for a US$75 million portfolio of group, credit and Individual products.
UAE: JLT appoints leader for credit and political risks
JLT Specialty and JLT Middle East and Africa (MEA) have announced the creation of a new regional Credit, Political and Security (CPS) Risk Hub in the UAE. Mr Harry Doyne-Ditmas will relocate to Dubai as Leader of the new initiative, with responsibility for driving the development of CPS business across the Middle East & Africa.
Mr Doyne-Ditmas will work closely with the JLT CPS hubs, especially London and Asia, to structure and arrange credit, political and security solutions for financial institutions, trading companies, major corporations and public-sector clients.
UAE Medical Insurance hires Head of Corporate Sales and Retention
UAE Medical Insurance (UMI) has appointed Mr Colin Ward as Corporate Sales Director. Based in Dubai, Mr Ward brings a wealth of experience in the health insurance industry to help increase UMI’s reach and quality of service.
Mr Ward joined the health insurance industry in 1995, working for BUPA in the UK. In 2006, he was tapped to help grow Lifecare International – an agent of BUPA Global – in Dubai. He then moved to William Russell in Dubai, where he helped the company establish a presence in the UAE. At William Russell, Mr Ward designed and subsequently implemented the sales distribution strategy for broker held and direct customers, later building local customer service and claims teams.